mr. schneider: larger than our defense budget. we are paying more in interest and service to our debt than any other line in our discretionary budget. as we stand here and we find ourselves again in this conversation about giving large cuts in taxes to people who are doing really, really well, i'm not talking about small businesses, i'm not talking about folks who are struggling to make ends meet. but to take away from programs like medicaid and investments in education to give a tax cut to people who don't really need it and add to the debt of the country so we are losing -- ms. silver you know from your experiences you are looking to make ends meet, the money that came in during the crisis, the pandemic, allowing companies to invest. i think you invested -- >> now to the floor of the u.s. house for votes.

live coverage on c-span. ing ord. the motion to suspend the rules. and pass h.r. 153. the motion to recommit h.r. 28. and passage of h.r. 28, if ordered. the first electronic vote will be conducted as a is a-minute vote -- as a 15-minute vote. pursuant to clause 9 of rule 20, remaining electronic votes will be conducted as five-minute votes. pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20, the unfinished business is the vote on the motion of the gentleman from missouri, mr. graves, to suspend the rules and pass h.r. 153, on which the yeas and nays are ordered. the clerk will report the title. the clerk: h.r. 153. a bill to provide for an online repository for certain reporting requirements for recipients of federal disaster assistance and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: the question is, will the house suspend the rules and pass the bill.

members will record their votes by electronic device. this is a 15-minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.]

the speaker pro tempore: on this vote the yeas are 416, the nays are zero. 2/3 of those voting having responded in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the bill is passed and, without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid upon --

the speaker pro tempore: on this vote the yeas are 423. the nays are --

the speaker pro tempore: the yeas are 426. the nays zero. 2/3 of those voting having responded in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the bill passed, without objection the motion to reconsider is laid upon the table.

pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20, the unfinished business is on the question of the motion to recommit on h.r. 28 offered by the gentlewoman from north carolina, ms.adams, on which the yeas and nays are ordered. the clerk will report the redesignate the moment. the clerk: motion to readmit h.r. 28 offered by ms. adams of north carolina. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on agreeing to the motion to recommit. members will record their votes by electronic device. five-minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.]

the speaker pro tempore: on this vote the yeas are 208. the nays are 218. the motion is not adopted. the question is on passage of the bill. so many as are in favor say aye. those opposed, no.

the noes have it. the bill is not passed. without objection the motion to reconsider is laid upon the table. the gentleman from michigan is recognized. >> mr. speaker -- mr. walberg: mr. speaker, i ask for the yeas and nays and final passage. the speaker pro tempore: the yeas and nays are ordered. those favoring a vote by the yeas and nays are ordered will rise. a sufficient number having arisen, the yeas and nays are ordered. members will record their votes by electronic device. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.]

the speaker pro tempore: on this vote the yeas are 218, the nays are 206. one voted present. the bill is passed. without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid upon the table.

the chair will receive a message. the house will be in order. the messenger: mr. speaker. messages -- the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order, please. the messenger: mr. speaker, messages from the president of the united states. the secretary: mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: madam secretary. the secretary: i am directed by the president of the united states to deliver to the house of representatives -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady will suspend. madam secretary. the secretary: i am directed by the president of the united states to deliver to the house of representatives a message in writing -- messages in writing.

the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. members, please take your conversationed outside -- conversations outside. the house will be in order. members, please take your conversations outside. the chair will now entertain

requests for one-minute speeches. for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition? mr. thompson: madam speaker, request unanimous consent to address the house for one minute, revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. thompson: i didn't make it. madam speaker, the house is not in order. the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. proceed. the gentleman is recognized. mr. thompson: madam speaker, i rise today in celebration of house passage of h.r. 28, the protection of women and girls in sports act. sports have always been more than just a game. they are an opportunity to -- for growth that teaches

discipline, teamwork and resilience. involvement in sports opens doors, fosters life-long friendships and inspires confidence in young adults across the country. unfortunately due to radical policies implemented by the biden-harris administration, and other far-left politicians nationwide, women and girls are losing critical protections that were afforded to them when title ix was signed into law more than 50 years ago. we owe it to the millions of young women and girls striving to reach their fullest potential, both on and off the field, who deserve fairness and safety. the protection of women and girls in sports act honors the commitment we made through title ix, defense of principles of fair competition and ensures that athletes can compete in categories that reflect their biological realities. i'm proud to support this legislation today on the house floor and i urge my senate colleagues to pass it as well. thank you, madam speaker, and i yield back the balance of my time.

the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition? >> madam speaker, i request unanimous consent to address the house for one minute, revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> madam speaker, i hear a lot from seniors in my district struggling to afford their prescriptions. i think that's wrong. this nation ought to care for the folks who have raised us, who helped build this great country of ours. i rise to share some news today, madam speaker, that will help. now most seniors will never pay more than $2,000 a year for their medicine. as of january 1, for those already enrolled in eligible medicare plans, the cap is automatic. and once folks have paid $2,000 out of pocket for prescriptions in a year, they won't pay a dime more. this cap will give seniors more peace of mind that they can afford the medicine they need, and thousands of seniors in western pennsylvania will save money from this policy.

defor too long we've seen pharmy benefit managers and big pharma rip us off, padding their pockets while people struggle to afford the medicine they need to stay healthy. this is an important step to bring down the cost for seniors in western pennsylvania. madam speaker, thank you. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition? >> madam speaker, i rise to address the house, ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> madam speaker, today i rise to celebrate the birth of mack walter tucker. mr. joyce: mark tucker is the son of my deputy chief of staff, matt tucker, and his wonderful wife, sara. since my very first day in office, matt has been by my side, working to help address

the health care issues that matter most to my communities in south central and western pennsylvania. the birth of a child offers both a time to reflect and an important time to look forward. as matt and sara begin this new chapter of their lives, i'm not sure if baby tucker will become a deacon or maybe a hokie. my hopes are that he becomes a nittany lion. i'm excited to see them both have the opportunity to work with mark as he grows and learns, as they raise their newborn son. and teach him about the important issues of life that matter most to a child. that matter most to his new family, to his community, to teach him the faith that he will grow in to become a proud american. welcome, mark tucker. thank you, madam speaker. and i yield back.

the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from north carolina seek recognition? >> madam speaker, i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. davis: madam speaker, drum roll, please. i rise to recognize a legendary drummer and, above all, an incredible human being. sam "the man"ly a than. mr. lathan was born and raised in wilson, north carolina, at 94 he has a deep passion for drums. which placed him on many stages, from playing for the iconic singer james brown, the monitors, to st. john a.m.e. zion church, his home church. mr. latham has also served as an educator and drove a school bus. he's known for mentoring his former students. he's been featured in the african-american music trails of

north carolina. madam speaker, joining many community members and recognizing sam "the man" lathan for his love of drumming and community is indeed an honor. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from florida seek recognition? >> madam speaker, i ask unanimous concept to address the for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> mr. speaker, i rise today in my first speech on the house floor to applaud the men and women powering america's space flight industry. mr. haridopolos: i'm a proud resident of florida's space coast, the launch pad for america's journey to the stars since the early days of nasa. but this is not just our past, it is our future. 2024 was a record breaking year for the space coast with 93 successful launches crossing our skies, and in just the first few weeks in 2025, five more launches have taken place,

proving that america's golden age of space flight is alive and well. this renaissance has powered -- is powered by the game-changing private companies like spacex and blue origin whose ingenuity has turned space flight into a thriving ecosystem of public-private collaboration. dominance in space is essential to america's economic strength and military readiness and i am confident that under the leadership of chairman babin and president trump, america will remain the global leader in space exploration and innovation. madam speaker, thank you and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from california seek recognition? mr. garamendi: madam speaker, i rise to speak for one minute. and modify my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. garamendi: thank you. madam speaker, there's a great

tragedy aoccurring in l -- occurring in california as we speak. members of the california delegation have spoken on the floor about the extraordinary damage, the loss of life and the lives that have been disrupted. i was shocked to watch on television the elected leader of this house suggesting that federal assistance to deal with that tragedy would be conditioned. didn't specify on what, but i would remind that gentleman that $120 billion has gone to louisiana over the last 20 years, dealing with the tragedies, katrina, new orleans, and the like. and that's not the total count. it would be unconscionable for this house to place any condition on the necessary assistance that americans should give to our american people in

los angeles. i would ask us to search our conscience and for the leader, electricked leader of this house to do so -- elected leader of this house to do so also and put aside those requirements. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: thank you. for what purpose does the gentleman from georgia seek recognition? mr. carter: i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute, to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. carter: madam speaker, i rise today to mourn the loss of patricia barragan "shrek" who sadly passed away at the age of 95. she was the long-time organist and choir director for 66 years at the cathedral basila of st. john the baptist. at just 16 years old, she became the organist at the cathedral in 1946. she managed several choirs, including the savannah catholic darian choir. this s.v.a. alum in a choir, the

cathedral men's choir and the women's choir. she was also the music director at st. vincent's academy for 47 years of her career where she taught choreal singing and church music. her service to the academy was very impactful. she composed a fight song in the academy's alma mater which are still sung today. she was awarded a medal for her work in the church by st. pope john paul ii and recognized by the city of savannah, from which she was gifted a key to the city. additionally, savannah also declared patty barragan shreck day. she will forever be remembered as a dedicated servant of god and her community through her service to the church and to the city of savannah. thank you, madam speaker, and i yield back. ... the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from new york seek recognition?

>> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute, to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. >> thank you. it's an honor to speak on the floor recognizing new york's fourth congressional district. ms. guillen: i'm ready to get to work to the matters that mean the most to long island. ms. gillen: we need to secure our border and give the new yorkers a tax cut. these issues aren't political. the american people are counting on all of us to put our differences aside and work together to put money back in people's pockets and get things done. madam speaker, my constituents have been clear, they want problems solved, not political extremism on either side. i'm honored to be their congresswoman, and i look forward to working with anyone from any party who is serious about working productively to address the pressing issues that

our working families face. thank you, madam speaker. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house a message. the clerk: to the congress of the united states, section 202-d of the national emergency act 50u.s.c., 1622-d provides for the automatic termination of a national emergency unless prior to 90 days of the anniversary date of the declaration the president publishes in the record and transmits to the conga notice saying the emergency is to continue beyond the effect of the emergency date. in accordance with this provision, i've sent to the federal register for publication the enclosed notice stating the national emergency with respect to the situation in the west bank, declared by executive order 14115 of february 1, 2024, is to continue in effect beyond february 1, 2025.

the situation in the west bank, and in particular the high levels of extremist settler violence forced displacement of people and villages and property destruction that has reached intolerable levels and constitutes a serious threat to the peace, security, and stability of the west bank and gaza and israel and the broader middle east region. these actions undermine the foreign policy objectives of the united states, including the viability of a two-state solution and ensuring israelis and palestinians can attain equal measures of security, prosperity, and freedom. they also undermine the security of israel and have the potential to lead to broader regional destabilization across the middle east, threatening the united states personnel and its interests. the situation in the west bank continues to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the united states.

therefore, i have determined that it is necessary to continue the national emergency declared in executive order 14115 with respect to the situation in the west bank. signed joseph r. biden jr., the white house, january 14, 2025. the speaker pro tempore: referre d to the committee on foreign affairs and ordered printed. the chair lays before the house a message.

the act, the text of an agreement for cooperation between the government of the united states of america and the government of the kingdom of thailand concerning peaceful uses of nuclear energy, the agreement. i'm also pleased to transmit by written approval authorization and determination concerning the agreement at an unclassified nuclear proliferation assessment statement, npas concerning the agreement, in accordance with section 123 of the act, a classified annex to the npas prepared by the secretary of state in consultation with the

director of national intelligence summarizing relevant classified information will be submitted to the congress separately. the joint memorandum submitted to me by the secretaries of state and energy and a letter from the chair of the nuclear regulatory commission stating the views of the commission are also enclosed. an addendum to the npas containing a comprehensive analysis of the export control system of the kingdom of thailand with respect to nuclear related matters, including interactions with other countries of proliferation concern and the actual or suspected nuclear dual use or missile related transfers to such countries. pursuant to section 102a.w. of the national security act of 1957, 50u.s.c.3024-w is being submitted separately by the director of national intelligence. the agreement has been

negotiated in accordance with the act and other aapplicable law. in my judgment it needs all applicable requirements and will advance nonproliferation and other foreign policy interests of the united states of america. the agreement contains all of the provisions required by section 123-a of the act. it provides a comprehensive framework for peaceful nuclear cooperation with the kingdom of thailand based on a mutual commitment to nuclear nonproliferation. it would permit the transfer of material, equipment, including reactors, components, and information for peaceful nuclear purposes. it would not permit the transfer of restricted data or sensitive nuclear technology. any special material transferred to the kingdom of thailand can only be in the form of low enriched uranium with the exception of small count physical, special fissionable

material used as standards, detectors, or targets, or for other such purposes as parties may agree. through the agreement, the kingdom of thailand would affirm its intent to rely on existing international markets for nuclear fuel services rather than acquiring sensitive nuclear technology. for example, for enrichment and reprocessing. and the united states would affirm its intent to support these international markets to ensure nuclear fuel supply for the kingdom of thailand. the agreement has a term of 30 years, although it can be terminated at any time by either party or one year's advanced written notice to the other party. in the event of determination or expiration of the agreement, key nonproliferation conditions and controls will continue in effect as long as any material equipment or components subject to the agreement remains in the territory of the party concerned or under its jurisdiction or control anywhere or until such

time as the parties agree that such material, equipment, or components are no longer usable for any nuclear activity relevant from the point of view of safeguards. the kingdom of thailand is a party to the treaty on nonproliferation of nuclear weapons and has concluded a comprehensive safeguards agreement and additional protocol thereto with the international atomic agency. the kingdom of thailand also was among the early sponsors of and as a state party to the treaty on the southeast asia nuclear weapon-free zone. a more detailed discussion of the kingdom of thailand's domestic civil nuclear activities and its nuclear nonproliferation policies and practices is provided in the npas and its classified annex. i've considered the views and recommendations of the interested departments and agencies and am reviewing the

agreement and have determined its performance will promote and not constitute an unreasonable risk to the common defense and security. accordingly, i have approved the agreement and authorized its execution and urged the congress give it favorable consideration. this transmission shall constitute a submittal for purposes of subsections 123-b and 123-d of the act. my administration is prepared to immediately begin the consultations with the senate foreign relations committee and the house foreign affairs committee as provided in subsection 123-b. upon completion of the 30 days of continuous session review provided for in subsection 123-b, the 60 days of continuous section review provided for in subsection 123-d shall commence. signed joseph r. biden jr., the white house, january 14, 2025.

the speaker pro tempore: referre d to the committee on foreign affairs and ordered printed. under the speaker's announced policy of january 9, 2023 -- under the speaker's announced policy of january 9, 2023 under the speaker's announced policy of january 3, 2025, mr. schweikert is recognized. mr. schweikert: i think we'll do a continuation of what we did last week. if you don't like math or economics, please turn off c-span. there's a couple things we've got to walk through. last thursday, i think i took 38 minutes here and the concept i was trying to walk through were two things. one, the demographics of the united states being the primary driver of u.s. debt. ok. it's not that complicated but it seems to really bother people. but the second thing was this

concept called interest fragility. big word. what it basically means is when you have hads 36 trillion in debt, $29 trillion publicly financed, when over a year you're going to refinance almost $10 trillion, bring maybe $2.3 trillion new issuances to market, that little movements in interest rates can be a boatload of cash. what happened last friday? we got a knockout jobs report. and here's the irony people need to understand. the united states and a few other governments, china and others, are bingeing on so much debt that they have a ravenous appetite to grab people's savings and borrow it around the world, when the bond market said

hey, the u.s. economy is actually doing ok, that means more individuals, more businesses, more will be in the market to consume debt. we're going to raise interest rates. the united states gets its head kicked in when our interest rates go up. i think i was trying to show a chart the other day. look, it doesn't completely work this way because you've got to refinance into it. but if we went to a 5% handle on u.s. sovereigns, from short term to the 30 years, you had a 5% interest rate, was our mean interest rate on u.s. debt, it's almost $9 trillion additional borrowing spending, interest over the next 10 years. so functionally, going to 5% is double everything we're pretty much talking about in the extension of the tax reform.

there's this lack of understanding. we are on the cusp of the bond market. the debt market is actually being the number one influencer on u.s. policy, not congress. when you borrow $70,000 a secon. i didn't bring it this time but have done it in the past where we are in nine years. it's no longer $70,000 a second, it's almost doubled. how many of you understand we borrow $70,000 a second, and the math will tell you, almost 100% of that borrowing from today to the next decade is interest and health care. but we don't want to tell people that. of the $2.3 trillion, my math, says we're going to borrow this year and c.b.o. will publish something the next day or so and we'll see how close my math got

to what their prediction is, half of it is interest. so even when we do all sorts of things to reduce spending, to modernize on how we deliver services to change the cost, we have this interest monster because we have hads 36 trillion and every 125 days, madam speaker, basically every 125 days, we click off another $1 trillion. and yeah, to the poor clerk staff, i'm so sorry, you have to be so tired of hearing idiots like me -- well, idiot me, say these things over and over, but it doesn't seem to sink in around here. .. look, one of the reasons i'm here today is i'm trying to sell a concept. that is a chart, it's almost

unreadable, i accept that. but what it was saying is we're up against a series of tax expirations at the end of this year. $3.7 trillion of it is individuals. your individual taxes are going up at the end of this year. but then we have, you know, estate taxes and pass-throughs and l.l.c.'s and partnerships, all those other things. and i think the treasury department a couple of days ago scored it not at 4.6, they scored it at 5.5, that's a timingesque, it's a different year, higher interest rates. but there's an economic study done by c.b.o. and outside groups saying if congress can find an -- find a way to offset it, and that's hard. we're talking $400 billion a year we'll have to find in modernizations and change in spending. if congress can step up and pay for it, you not only maintain current tax policies, so our

brothers and sisters, all our taxes don't go up, but you get additional growth in the economy because you didn't just pull that much more money out of the economy and then have interest pile up on it. i think it was a year or so ago, two years ago, we had, i think, three months where we had to borrow money to pay for our borrowing. when we go home and talk to our voters, how much of them will look back at us and understand the scale, and you get these responses like, well if you just cut this or that, i'll show a couple of those charts again. the rounding errors. sometimes just a few hours of borrowing from an entire year. but that's what we speech if i because it's easy to understand. there's a great sound bite on talk radio. it's crap math. so once again, the basic premise of this chart and it was done by, i believe, both joint

economic -- no it was reconfirmed by joint economic and the baseline math was also done by c.b.o. it said if you want to maximize economic prosperity in the united states, extend current tax policy. fix the depreciation, we call it spencing, research and developing expensing, that's where you get the productivity curve because god knows you'll hear the democrats come behind the mike and say look how good the job market is. how many americans are poorer today than they were four years ago? they may be employee bud they are poorer. that's because inflation went up faster than their wages. i represent a district in the phoenix-scottsdale area that had, i believe, 27% inflation over the last four years. so unless your wages are up 27%, you're poorer today. how do you raise wages?

how do you raise purchasing pow her wages go up with inflation. that just means you're treading water. productivity. there are things we can to in the tax policy that's coming to fix the things that create the productivity boost. the things we can do in regulatory reform in. modernization. the adoption of technology as a regulator. you get people around here go around say, we're going to deregulate. fine but how about doing smart regulation? we're all walking around with supercomputers in our pockets. the idea if you could crowd source certain data, crash the size of the bureaucracy, make them less intrusive, and yet air quality. water quality. all these other things can be much safer. and it costs a fraction of what we do today. you have to be willing to think like a scientist. a data person. and deal with the army of lobbyists outside in the hallway who are upset you're making a change to the business model or bureaucracy. unionize the bureaucracies that show up angry at you like, what

do you mean you want to use technology at the inch r.s.? remember, madam speaker, the inch r.s. the second largest unionized work force in america. in the federal government. i believe the v.a. is the first one. and every time we try add modernization to do it better, faster, cheaper, fairer, can you believe they get cranky. so look. the math is the math. if you want to maximize economic vitality for this country, do your very best to offset as much of the tax policy extension. the other thing i have to give you that is going to make me sound a little cranky is when you hear a member of congress, particularly a couple of our senators running around here saying, we're just extending baseline. huh? that's a whole made up term now. the law is the law. the law says the tax cuts for

individuals, pass throughs, estate, alternative minimum tax, those things, built to expire at the end of 2025. we made up a term around here, we're just going to extend current policy. it's on this market. we're extending law. current law is it expires. take a look at all your c.b.o. and debt projections. it has expirations. another few trillions in debt over the next 10 year we was to pay interest on. and here's the fragiletism we're going to do this on the chart here. when you do that, you're going to go home and tell your voters, i extended your tax cuts. great. i'm all for -- i don't want to raise tax on anyone. but if you do it without paying for it, when the interest rate goes up and that family's credit card, car, you know, car debt,

when their mortgage, when everything else gets more expensive. when the economy slows down because interest rates are up because you've made the bond market nervous. oh, but david, that would require think like an economist. i'm going to re-elected by tell peemg i just extended their taxes. their tax benefits from the 2017tcja. great. how do we explain to people that there are no free options anymore? we have the moral obligation to not make the world debt markets nervous. and where that makes sense, let's see if i can -- you saw with great britain they were doing all sorts of tax policy this summer, the pound crashed, the interest rates explode. but most of the world actually

has lower interest on the 10-year bond than the united states. greece today can sell a 10-year bond almost a full percentage point cheaper than the united states. greece, today, can sell a 10-year bond almost a full percentage point cheaper than the united states. does anyone understand there is a risk premium? and if you screw around with this stuff, there's this thing called a term premium. it's a fancy way of saying, we want actually a little higher interest for risk. so one of my predictions for 2025 is, moody's is the last of the three big ratings services. i think we'll get downgraded. if we do this stuff without even an aterpt to pay for some of it. offset snof it. modernize our costs in how we deliver our services. if we do that we'll get downgraded by all three ratings services.

the other two have already downgraded us. anyone here care? or we just want to do happy talk and sugar highs? a good dopamine hit by a good hit on social media but don't give the damn math. the fact of the matter is, most of the industrialized world today has a better credit rating and you see it not by the credit rating services but what they can sell their debt for, cheaper than the united states. and when you hear people talk about the extraordinary privilege the united states has, there's actually two of them. the fact the world uses the u.s. dollar as the ultimate arbiter of exchange. great. let's not screw that up. the other one we also never talk about, i'll do in a futch presentation, it's action from an economist's standpoint, may be bigger than the fact that we

get to buy and sell in our own currency, is actually the extraordinary privilege that smart people from around the world, entrepreneurs from around the world, investors from around the world, want to do it here. they want to li here. go to school here. produce their products here. invest here. from an economist's standpoint, the united states has two remarkable, extraordinary privileges. our currency and people want to be with us. in a couple of moments i'll show you why that's so important. but back to a baseline, and please if you're one of our new members, you got to memorize this. you see the blue on the chart that's upside down so i look like an idiot. let's get this right. that's discretionary. all defense, we consider discretionary. everything most people think is government. the f.b.i., park service, the

foreign service. those things. that's blue. we call that nondefense discretionary. everything a member of congress votes on is borrowed money. and my -- if i do the math off the top of my head it may be $400 billion of what's in the red which is mostly earned benefit. that's your social security, your medicare, your veterans benefits, you federal pensions. those things. think about this. so functionally, i think this year it's like 75-25. 75% of all spending is on autopilot. we don't vote on it. sorry. shouldn't be yelling. i've had a lot of caffeine. what we do vote on, what we give speeches on, which we screw around with all the time, is discretionary. and in the scale of what we can reduce, it's almost -- a lot of what we debate here is rounding errors. we have had debates on the floor here where the amount of money

we're trying to save, we borrowed more money in the time of the debate than it would save that year. because we dent understand. if you're clicking off $75,000 of borrowing every second, i wonder what this speech is costing. if i go a full hour, you start to see the idea. so you're clicking off, so far this fiscal year we're borrowing about $10 billion a day. i think it'll come in at $6 billion, $7 billion a day once we get tax receipts in april. but i'm trying to explain the fragility. so let's actually walk through, here's the point i was just trying to make a couple of moments ago. if we went back to a 5% interest rate, just shy of $9 trillion over 10 years. so just the interest rate move is double everything we're talking about. how many times do you hear idiot, i mean, excuse me, elected officials like me get behind these microphones and

talk through, it's not only having good fiscal policy but we're also going to be disciplined because how we're going to communicate to the bond marks that we're worthy of the future investments. and where this gets really dangerous is, remember how i was just criticizing people around here saying let's ignore everything, keep doing what we're doing, don't have any offsets. if we do that, in nine years, 9.2% of the entire economy is borrow. this year my math is we'll do -- about 6.7% of the entire economy is going to be borrowed money. what happens if we have some large disasters. can you imagine that happening? what happens if we have another pandemic? what happens if we have a war? do you understand how fragile you're making the greatest country on earth? because we're not willing to

tell the truth about the fiscal situation. and for my friends on the left who go, just raise taxes. look, i can bring my charts over and over as i have in the past. when we have high marginal tax rates we get about 1% of g.d.p. when we have low marginal tax rates we get about 17% of g.d.p. we have 75, 0 years of history showing that, it falls back to that margin. the secret is grow. the other side is don't -- is stop lying abgrowing. i'm going to do this, 1% of g.d.p. is $300 billion. 17% of that is about $48 billion. if you are borrowing $7 billion a day and you did all these things to get another point of g.d.p. you covered yourself for a week. you got to understand. so you get these folks who want to say happy talk, we're going

to go our way out. to cover this year's debt you need almost a 50% g.d.p. growth. come on, join reality world with us. put batteries in your calculator. we can do it. we can do this together. but the one point i wanted to go, so our brothers and sisters on the left have done multiple presentations here. showing that if you do all their tax hikes, $400,000 and up, you get about a point and a half of g.d.p. if we do all of our spending cuts in the nondefense discretionary which is what most of us have talked about for the last couple of year you get about 1% of g.d.p. you've got a big 2.5%. we're borrowing 7% of the entire economy this year. so all the left's solutions and the things we as conservatives often talk about, don't get you actually anything close to what's necessary.

terrifying. madam speaker, i'm having sort of a personal crisis of confidence because i do this every week. my math is good. we do our best. we make mistakes on occasion but try to double and triple check it. and no one seems to care. is it really that terrifying to tell the truth to our voters? the press around here has no interest in telling the truth on the matter. i have a couple bloomberg reporters, a "wall street journal" reporter and on occasion a public television reporter seem to be the only ones that ever want to look at these charts. everyone else, basically, they want to write a gossip story. yet these things decide if my 2 1/2-year-old has a future. it also decides if your retirement becomes a miserable

disaster. i hear a little person in the balcony. if that little person is 2 years old today, and the little person is 22, his or her taxes have to be double what they are today. 100% increase. my 2-year-old who hopefully is finishing his university and going into grad school before he does his post doctorate -- post doctorate doctorate. but think of this, a child born today who is 22 or 23, the united states has to double every u.s. tax, tariffs, income, corporate, everything, just to maintain baseline services. a child born today will be the first in u.s. history who will be poorer than their parents and

grandparents. great morality around here. let alone our inability we're not allowed to talk about social security even though the social security actuaries, the c.b.o., the outside groups, the left groups, the right groups now say 8.5 because we gave away a couple hundred billion dollars out of it. nine years or so we double senior poverty in america. because when the trust fund is empty and you all get a 20% cut in social security and we double senior poverty, how many people do you see coming behind these microphones saying we need to fix it? it's immoral where it's going. but if you do that, the left now has a political consultant writing attack adings on you because they care so much about -- attack ads on you because they care so much about winning the next election. but how many baby boomers are living on the street because they can't afford their rent?

the math is the math and the math will win. if we continue current policy and not follow the law in nine years, 9.2% of all u.s. debt -- excuse me, of the economy will be borrowed in u.s. debt. and this chart doesn't factor in the new interest rates because we're up a full point in december. great job, guys. i've done this chart the past couple weeks because it seems to have an impact. every dollar we take in tax collections we spend $1.39. take in $1, spend $1.39. by 2034, if we went back to a 6% interest rate, i know that's a couple points higher than where we're at right now, but 6%, i think that's sort of what we were paying in the 1980's,

1990's, early 2000's up until the great recession but if we go to 6%, think of this, in nine budget years, 45% of all tax collections go just to interest. anyone care? nah, because we'd have to tell people the truth. this is a new chart. and i'm trying to actually sort of explain. our brothers and sisters on the left who want basically a socialized planned economy, industrial policy, they did on the chips act and then their version of i guess they call it the inflation reduction act, there's some good economic data that says if you wanted to do something that's much less expensive, create a much broader economic growth, and create much more productivity, you should not do what the democrats did

which is let's bring some of our executives and investors, they'll write us political checks, but if you'd done something like research and development expensing and expensing when a company buys a piece of equipment to be better, faster, cheaper, it's dramatically less expensive. and has actually more economic growth and spreads through the economy. the problem with the democratic industrial policy, we give this to the green technology and do the chips act, you're writing checks for last generation technology. there is a little part of that i would have voted for for primary research and development to do it better, faster, cheaper. it's like the old joke, what's the fastest way to make every computer in america worthless?

have someone invest a quantum computer, and suddenly that leap, all of a sudden you have a voltaic panel that go up 20%, experiments in the lab now, all are out of the money and don't make common sense anymore. creative construction is one of the hallmarks of a society that becomes more productive. and the way you get that is not the arrogance. when i first got here, i think i told this joke from my wife and she looked at me, what are the two times in life, mr. speaker, you think you know everything? when you're 13 years old and the day after you get elected to congress. oh, come on. that's funny stuff. but the fact of the matter is when you see these sorts of policies coming from democrats where they're so smart, they get to choose the industries that get the corporate handouts, the cash handouts, and you can't

imagine that there were strings attached. and yet if we had done a legaltarian tax study, we want to know what the breakthrough is tomorrow and the breakthrough tomorrow is the thing that raises all boats, i guess is the saying, and makes us productive. what do you get in a society that's more productive? wages go up. all right. i just want to make a point. and i did a little bit of this last week. we held a little bit of a contest i think in december, give us your ideas how you would modernize or reduce spending, these things? so far this budget year, if you got rid of foreign aid, this is for the 2025 fiscal year, all foreign aid, you get rid of it,

it's one week of borrowing. get rid of all the salaries of the department of education. ok. i'm fine with that. but you've got to understand, it basically comes out to nine hours of borrowing for an entire year. and that's not spending. that's borrowing. so you have these people behind me that get behind these microphones and speechify. no. all the salary just covered nine hours of borrowing. there's a scale problem. i know seeing 12 zeroes when you start talking in trillions. it's hard. it's also our job. it's our job to understand the complexities here. and one of the complexities that we're terrified to talk about is it anyone is interested in what

we're really up against, go online and grab the congressional budget office's report from yesterday, every year they do an estimate on population, fertility, growth in the society. we were using the census bureau's data, and i've come behind the microphone and said our quick look at the census bureau data, in 11 years the united states would have more deaths than births. c.b.o. yesterday came back and said nah, the way they're calculating the wafer tillity rates are in the united states, in eight years the united states will have more deaths than births. demographics is destiny. you want people like me to figure out the financing of medicare, medicaid, social security, which were all designed systems for population growth. remember, today's worker pays

for today's beneficiary. and in eight years -- and even when we do the adjustments for net immigration, you pick up a couple more decades. but think about that. living in a society with more deaths than births in eight years. matter of fact, i believe there were 17 states that last year had more deaths than births. but this goes back to my productivity argument. if you want a society and a country that still economically grows and can still defend themselves and is still the envy of the world and has the extraordinary privileges, are we going to adopt regulatory tax policies that maximize economic growth? well, turns out you're going to have to do things that maximize productivity, maximize labor substitution, use that technology use the supercomputer

in your pocket. it's amazing how many people freak out about starting to use a.i. and these things. you don't have a choice. if we're going to keep going we have to raise interest rates. but if they go up a bunch, it's almost too late because we're caring so much, our demographics are against us and we have to have a productivity spike and it's going to come through functionally two things, a.i. and synthetic biology but i'll save that for another speech. but there's a way it can work. there's hope. but there's only hope if this place sharpens its intellect.

you can't keep saying the same things you were saying in the 1990's or a decade ago. the world is different. i hope the staff, the voters, others start to really think this through and start demanding, saying i need international robustness. if that's a word. learn your math but learn the opportunity and learn to think like an economist. so let's put up the one chart that gets me the most hate. and it's more than a year, a year and a half out of date. the numbers are worse today. but it's the truth. and for anyone crazy enough to watch, how many members of congress are willing to show

this to you? this is directly from c.b.o., numbers from a year and a half ago and they update it every year. c.b.o. projects $115 trillion debt over 2024-2054. social security, medicare account for $124 trillion of the deficit, the rest of the budget has a $9 trillion surplus. let me walk that through. basically means everything when we talk about of nondefense discretionary, defense discretionary, all those are expected to grow slower than tax receipts. medicare and social security and their interest that goes on top of their deficit financing produce about $124 trillion of borrowing. how many of you think the world is going to lend us $124 trillion over the next 30 years? and this is based on current interest rates.

actually, sort of based on last year's interest rates. my math -- because i was playing with the calculator a couple days ago, i have this going to $135 trillion, not $124 trillion. it's not republican, it's not democrat, it's demographics. but the fact of the matter is, you could substantially change much of medicare's costs and make services better, faster, cheaper. just join this century of technology in taking care of people. the ring i'm wearing that does my vitals or the technologies to incentivize saying, do we pay a medicare provider to help people be healthier instead of making more money when someone is sicker? . . obesity if america is an

additional $9.1 trillion in america. maybe we should change the farm bill, nutrition support, helping our brothers and sisters because it's both moral and it's great economics. and suddenly people can come back into the labor force. they can form family, do all these other things. because we have states where more than half of the population is technically obese. it's government policy in many ways. that's doing it to these people. it's immoral. and i'm going to get hate texts saying you can't talk about that. psychiatry scry you. let's do what's right for our brothers and sisters in this country. we're americans. don't hide from the math. embrace it and fix it. and the reason i brought this one, if you saw my staff they were slipping me this because we were sort of speed doing the math.

let me explain. last week's speech, one of the question, and we're trying to do this more often. we'll get these questions that come in on the comments. someone asked, they actually did it as a legitimate question. foreign aid over four years is $198 billion. so think of that. every dime of foreign aid, if you said for the last four year, took four years of borrowing. it would cover eight days. 8.2 days of debt. so those of you who get up in front of these mikes and say, if we got rid of foreign wade eel eid balance the budget. even when i do the average of the last four years it's just a little over eight days of borrowing. it's hard. it's hard when you get up in front of an audience at home. and you tell them the truth and it's not the same thing they

heard 10 minutes earlier on a talk radio show or on a cable television show. but this isn't about ratings. this isn't about today's dopamine hit of you being angry because you saw something on the drudge report. this is about saving this republic. if you're like i am, you believe this republican was -- this republic was divinely inspire fsmed you believe like i do, do you not have a moral obligation to save this country? how about being a dad? my wife is my age. we were blessed, we got to adopt a couple of kids. should they be part of the first generation that's poorer? they don't have to be. there's a way the math works. it just turns out, mr. speaker, it's hard. we have to do complex things. we're going to have to tell

lobbyists and people from home that you got to modernize, got government to join this century, have to change your business models. they may be mean to us, may not even contribute to us. but there's a way to make the math save our future. and i'm going to argue to you in the next six weeks around here, we're going to make some decisions. are we going to modernize the delivery of government? are we going to find a way to offset? are we going to convince the bond markets we're serious about the future? for everyone out there, watch us. because we all give these beautiful speeches on the morality of what an amazing country we have. and our place in the world. our place in history. mr. speaker, this is the weeks

we're going to make that history, or have to live with the sins of what we do. with that, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: members are reminded to direct their remarks to the chair and not to a perceived viewing audience. does the gentleman have a motion? mr. schweikert: i move that the house stand adjourned. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on the motion to adjourn. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. the motion is adopted. accordingly the house stands adjourned until 10:00 a.m. tomorrow for morning hour

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