WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congressman David Schweikert [AZ-01] examined several popular suggestions for cutting U.S. debt and the real impact each would have on the interest costs during his House floor speech yesterday. For example, cutting the budget of the United Nations would cover only two-and-a-half days of borrowing annually. Cutting funding for both Smithsonian and national parks saves less than four-and-a-half hours of borrowing yearly. Cutting congressional salaries– a commonly proposed solution– would save just about twenty-six minutes of borrowing for the entire year. While the Congressman agrees that many of the solutions probably need to be implemented, his caveat explains that all of those solutions combined don’t come anywhere close to making a real impact. See below for some highlights from his speech:    |
| On how different suggestions actually account for reducing federal deficit: [Beginning at 25:28] “‘The U.S. will waste billions of dollars on the United Nations!“ Ok. Get rid of the United Nations. It’s [less than three] days of borrowing. Let’s take a look here. ‘The U.S. spends too much on the Smithsonian and national parks!’ Ok, so if we’re borrowing $6 billion a day, the Smithsonian costs $1 billion a year, you’ve basically covered [18] hours [of borrowing]? Maybe you don’t want museums. Maybe you want create entrance fees or do something else, but don’t act like you just balanced the budget by doing something like that. Let’s do another one. ‘Cutting congressional salaries would solve the deficit!’ We’re probably overpaid for the quality of our work, but if you’re borrowing $6 billion a day, and you do that– if you got rid of congressional salaries– I think it’s 26 minutes for an entire year. So take an entire year of borrowing, and you’ve covered 26 minutes. Stop saying crazy stuff! You know, these are serious problems. Maybe we need serious people to start actually thinking about these things. So let’s take a look at another one. ‘The government spends billions on unused federal office buildings! Absolutely. We need to clean this up, and it would be about, oh, let’s see, [seven] hours. Maybe [eight] hours of borrowing. Close up, get rid of all these unused office space– which we should do, absolutely need to do that– but it’s like seven hours worth of borrowing! Because we’re burning over $6 billion every single day. Am I making the point? Are you starting to understand the scale of what members of congress have to take on? And these trite little sound bites don’t get you anywhere. ‘Cutting funding to NPR, PBS, and the National Endowment of the Arts would save billions!’ No, it’d cover [a little over] four hours– four-and-a-half hours of borrowing. Maybe you should. Maybe you should actually turn those into public trust, let the public pay– other than taxpayers, you know– have them fundraise, fine. But don’t act like you just solved the national debt problem. It’s four hours of borrowing. Let’s do one or two more, get this off my chest. ‘Presidential travel– this was one [from] the Democrats going after President Trump.’ All the presidential travel, which is $350 billion. You’ve got an hour point four. Yeah, about 1.4 hours. So… less than two hours for an entire year’s worth of borrowing. Let’s have one or two more fun just because I have them done. ‘Let’s just get rid of the Department of Education salaries!’ Yay! You covered [half-a-day] of borrowing. How about another one? Emergency services for undocumented [migrants]! These are people here illegally– they walk is into hospitals [and] get a federal subsidy. Let’s make it so it just becomes uncompensated care of the hospital, fine. You just covered nine hours of borrowing for an entire year. The reality of it– it’s not these crazy little trite things. Yes, they’re problems, and there may be hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars out there, which we need to crush and get rid of. We’re going to borrow about $2.3 trillion this year, and in ten years, that number is up dramatically!” On partisan politics prohibiting a chance to save future generations: [Beginning at 32:50] “You see how the Democrats are acting right now– just by data scientists, digging through and looking for perversities in the data sets– you would think there’d have been joy because those aren’t cutting services. Those are finding people who are exploiting you, taking advantage of your country. But, because it’s being done by President Trump, it must be opposed. How do you fix things? How do you save Social Security? How do you save Medicare? How do you save the future, when it’s not a loyal opposition anymore? It’s basically anything to burn the place down to take power. And for anyone who has watched this presentation, I beg of you: get good at the math. Stop making crap up because if you get good at the math, it provides us the opportunity to have the building blocks to actually produce a solution. There’s hope– there’re ways it works. We also have some economic data that basically says if we don’t do it within the next four years, and interest rates start to move against us, we’re in for a long, slow, rest of the century. That’s worthying about… because the debt starts piling and piling.“ **Fact-checked figures for borrowing estimates calculated by Joint Economic Committee Republican Staff. |
Press Release
February 12, 2025
Schweikert: “Tell the truth to each other… and toughen up.”
