David Schweikert

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Madam Speaker, the gentleman was there during some of the brutal years of the previous decade. The gentleman may remember the struggles of trying to keep the wheels on of how do you cover healthcare, education, and so many of the other needs that are in the State. Actually, we have a rough situation. We own so little of our land that I have seen some data where we are the most urbanized State in the country because we functionally live in two major metroplexes. That is where most of our population is. And to have a State now, where we are seeing some revenue forecasts and every month it looks like they are having to raise that forecast because of the economic vitality in our State and most of the States around the country. So I think there is often this misnomer of we talk about Federal tax reform. And I hold up a chart, it says: Last year at this time, we had $456 billion in revenue and this year we are at this time $510 billion. So a substantial increase. But I think we failed to talk about what is happening in our community, in our city, our county, and our State revenues, which are also benefiting from this cascade of economic expansion. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arizona.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Madam Speaker, I will have a little bit of a colloquy or a little bit of a conversation with the gentleman. For those of us in Arizona, the gentleman has seen the data that came out about 2 weeks ago that turns out that Arizona is actually having what would be the fastest acceleration of income growth in the entire Nation. Some of that is because we were hit pretty hard in 2008. A lot of it is because our State legislature, our Governor, have engaged in very pro-economic expanded qualities. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman to tell everyone what he did before taking this job.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Madam Speaker, I thank Representative Lesko. I am so used to calling her Debbie, having known each other for so long. What is also amusing here is, the next person I'm going to introduce, I have actually known most of my life, which is sort of terrifying. The three of us are from Arizona. I think we actually have a wonderful story to talk about what is happening in the Southwest, but particularly our State. The fact of the matter is, with the tax reform, some of the regulatory changes, some of the wonderful things in the economy, Arizona is blessed. Right now, our State is doing very well. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Biggs) to tell us a bit about what is happening in the Southeast Valley.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Madam Speaker, I have a quick thought experiment for everyone. If I had come to you a year ago and said that the United States would be at 3.8 percent unemployment, you would have laughed at me. If I had come to you and said that African American unemployment would be the lowest in modern times, Hispanic unemployment would be tied with some of the lowest numbers in modern times, that you would be seeing data of felons being recruited out of prison for work because there is such a labor shortage, and when one of the greatest difficulties we have in our society right now in the labor force is not enough workers and too many jobs, why isn't there this sound of joy from every American that this was the dream so many of us had of where we would be? So, as we go through our regions, I was going to invite Mr. Curtis of Utah to come up and tell us what is happening in that beautiful State because I have actually seen some stories of the Salt Lake area and other parts of Utah just doing amazingly well right now. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Curtis).

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Madam Speaker, I remember when the gentleman first got here, and we were going over those models. They were like 1.8, 1.9, and that was our future. Let's face it, we have blown that off the rails.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Mrs. Sallie Chalfin, who is retiring this month after 28 years of teaching. Sallie has impacted thousands of students' lives over the course of her teaching career, primarily teaching middle school mathematics and social studies. Born in Springfield, Illinois, Sallie graduated with a Bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona. She first taught at Alta E. Butler Elementary School in Phoenix, followed by Tavan Elementary School and Laguna Elementary School in Scottsdale. Sallie then spent a short time teaching in Ooltewah, Tennessee at Snow Hill Elementary School before moving back to the Valley of the Sun to spend nearly 14 years teaching at Mountainside Middle School. For the last four years she has taught at Cooley Middle School in Gilbert, Arizona. Her passion for education has been evident not only in the classroom but outside of school as well. She founded the Mountainside Middle School Helping Hands Club, a school service club that provided assistance each month to organizations and/or people in need in the local community, and she ran that club for nearly 14 years. Like so many of our nation's educators, Sallie continued to support students after school hours and tutored a number of them in math, going on to create a successful tutoring program that positively impacted many young people in middle school and high school. She has been a mentor to numerous students, and has always been willing to give her personal time to help them succeed. Her compassion, patience, and strong belief in her students have had lasting impacts long after they leave her classroom. Sallie has dedicated her professional career to helping students learn and achieve excellence. I join her family, her colleagues and her students, past and present, who thank her for her years of dedication to teaching and for her service to our nation.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to thank a very special member of my community. For as long as I have been involved in working for Arizona, Paula Linker has been a friend and supporter. Those who know Paula admire her for her courage and determination. She is forthright and dependable. She works every single day to make sure that the causes and people she cares for most have all the support she has to give. And, it is in that spirit that I am so pleased she is being awarded the Lincoln Lifetime Achievement Award from the Maricopa County Republican Committee. The community celebrates Paula, and it is with great enthusiasm that I include these remarks into the Record of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, as I get myself organized here, this evening I am going to actually try to do something that is probably a little dangerous and a little tricky. I am going to try to do some math from behind the microphone. You know, we have a running joke in our office that being a Member of Congress means you often work in a math-free zone but the math always wins. And, you know, to our friends over here, I guess I should--I don't mean to jump onto this, but we just heard some of the discussion about Ms. Slaughter. I am, obviously, from a different part of the country, a different party, different philosophy, and she was always incredibly kind to me and funny. Most people, I don't know, completely understood. She had a brutal wit, and so a couple of times, when I would go in front of the Rules Committee, sometimes the banter back and forth, you sat there and go: Is she just playing with me? So just for my friends that are just leaving from that. All right. So I am going to try to do a couple of things here, Mr. Speaker. I am going to actually sort of walk through what was in the most recent CBO report, but also a couple of the previous CBO reports and what is happening in our Nation's debt. At the same time, I am also going to talk about some of the positive things that are happening, and some of it because of the tax reform, some of the things that are happening in our unemployment and opportunity out there. So, first off, let's walk through a couple of baseline numbers, and then I am going to grind through these so it tells a story of where we are going and where we are at as a country. When we get behind these microphones and say, ``We have an entitlement crisis coming that we have to deal with,'' they have been saying it behind these microphones for 30 years. Well, it is here. The peak of the baby boom, I think, today, is about 62 years old. There are 74 million of us who are baby boomers, who will be moving into our benefits, and we don't have the resources to cover our promises, the way things are structured today. Yet if you look at the Pew poll from a couple of years ago, only 15 percent of Republicans believe there is an entitlement crisis coming, but only 5 percent of Democrats believe it. So this is one of the great difficulties in this body where you often hear us saying: Speak truth to power. Well, how about math to power? Well, what about our own constituents when they don't believe us because maybe there has been crying wolf or because it has been easier to say things like: Well, the problem is waste and fraud. There are problems with waste and fraud, but the numbers are tiny compared to what is about to happen. So, some baseline math. When I was born, 1962, there were five workers for every one retiree. Today--and let's actually do 12 years from now, because that is when it gets dramatic. Twelve years from now, there will only be two. You and your spouse will be covering one retiree. So, in just my lifetime, we have gone from five workers for one retiree to two. The math is brutal. So think about this. Over the last decade--so from 2008 to 2018--if you actually look at the growth in the size of spending in the government, 72 percent of it was just Social Security and Medicare. So if you actually look at the growth of the Federal spending, do understand, over the last 10 years, 72 percent of that growth were just those two programs: Social Security and Medicare. Over the next 10 years, just the growth will be about $1.3 trillion. That is, functionally, just the growth in Social Security and Medicare will be two full Defense Departments. It is important to get our head around telling the truth, because if we are going to save these earned entitlements, we need to have that moment of reflection that comes off of a calculator instead of what happens so often behind these microphones where we try to make public policy by feelings. So, first board I have up here, this is from the latest CBO report, which I actually have in here, which I am trying to keep from falling off the podium here, and there is actually some good news here. And, that is, because of what is going on the last couple of quarters, this last year, substantially, I believe, because of what is happening through growth-oriented policies, whether it be the tax reform, whether it be what is happening in the regulatory environment, you are actually seeing revenue into the trust funds go up a bit. It is still a crisis, but if you actually look at SSDI, which is Social Security Disability Insurance, I think it was maybe 1\1/2\, 2 years ago I got behind this microphone, and there were only like 4 years left in the trust fund, and it went to zero. Well, we gained almost 3 additional years. Now, some of that is because of policy, some of it is because of revenues because we have so many more people working right now. If you actually also take a look at some of the money going into Social Security, some of the money going into Medicare part A, that is the trust fund portion, we are actually picking up a couple of years--1 year here, 2 years there--in additional actuarial soundness of the trust funds. Think of this as an opportunity. If we are going to have to make policy--and as I stand behind this microphone, I am looking for a unified theory. It is not just entitlement reform because, let's face it, that is the third rail. People go nuts. They run attack ads on you. It is more complicated. We need to do those things in our society that help people be employed, do tax regulatory policies, training policies, opportunity policies, because the more of our brothers and sisters who are working--how do we go from 63 percent labor force participation, which is a wonderful number from where we thought we would be 10 years ago till now, how do we get it to go further? How do we get more of our brothers and sisters to move from being the long-term unemployed, the discouraged workers, and get them to move into the opportunities that are out there right now because we have, apparently, millions of jobs that are looking for workers, but it also does powerful things to these numbers? We are also going to have to be honest about mechanisms within immigration. We have a birthrate crisis in this country. The last few years, if you actually look at the number of babies we are having, our numbers have substantially collapsed. Well, remember, today's child is tomorrow's worker; and if in today's world, when you turn 65 and begin some of your benefits, the math is, you will spend about one-third of your adult life in retirement, but we don't have enough young people because these programs are pay-as-you-go programs. That is really important as we sort of walk through the math. So if you are looking for that unified theory, it even adds in things like trade. If we are going to be a country that is very slow on our birthrate and immigration, we have designed a talent-based immigration system that also does some rewards for younger demographics, but we are also going to have to have trade with countries that also have positive demographics so we actually have customers. There are lots of these things that all have to be thought of together. And something I am not going to do tonight, but I have done other evenings and we will do in a month or so, is a fixation on technology and how technology also can provide amazing opportunity in everything from changing the healthcare curve to actually allowing more of our brothers and sisters to participate in the workforce, even those with certain difficulties in life or even those who may be older but choose to work. Instead of being scared of technology, I think it may be our solution, depending on some of these cost curves. So what is important here is, as you look at this chart, just take a look at this first number here. That is the Social Security trust fund. Now, as you know, our general fund has taken that money and borrowed it, and then we replace it with sort of special Social Security IOUs. Now, if I remember correctly, last year we were paying the Social Security trust fund like 3.1 percent interest for those borrowed moneys. So when you see some of the future slides here, or boards, you will actually see, here is the trust fund balance; but, also, here it is with some of the interest revenue that we also pay ourselves back. So think of this craziness. Functionally, as a society, we borrow money to pay back the borrowed money because that cash that we took out of those trust funds has long since been spent. But on this board, in 10 years, the Social Security trust fund is cut in half. In just a few years, the Disability Insurance Trust Fund is empty, and if you actually can see it, the hospital, the Medicare part A, which is the only part really with the trust fund, in a few years, it is also down to zero. So just getting our heads around, this is reality, this is math, but it is better than it was a year or so ago, but it is still a crisis. And these, I am going to put up two of these boards that is just going to show--do you see this sort of flat inflection here? That is actually part of the good news because where you see--last year, it would have been a constant curve downward that we were depleting the funds. As you know, they have gone negative this year, meaning that the revenues coming out of Social Security is actually greater than the revenues coming in, except for, since the tax reform and some of the economic expansion, all of a sudden we have hit a bit of a plateau. CBO actually had it looking like it was going to last for a couple of years. I am actually much more optimistic than some of their baseline numbers, but that is that actual mathematical reprieve. You also see the two lines there. The variance in those is what we are also paying ourselves back as a spiff in interest. So this one is Social Security, Old-Age Survivors Insurance Trust Fund. But then when we actually move over to the hospital fund--and important, you will see this in future slides. Social Security, in many ways, isn't my crisis--isn't our crisis, because it is a defined benefit. Fixing it, the math is actually fairly easy. It is Medicare that becomes so incredibly difficult. And Medicare, as you are going to see in a couple of future slides, is a much larger financial issue in our near future. So you actually just see sort of the same thing in that even the hospital trust fund now is moving negative, meaning we are taking more money out of it than is going in. Yet, you do see the little bit of the plateau we are getting because of the current payroll tax. Just a point of reference on that. If you actually looked at the Tax Foundation's numbers when the tax reform was coming out, they actually had, I think it was, just shy of $300 billion over the next 10 years in new payroll tax, FICA revenues, and that actually reaches into this area. This is a chart that I have never seen on the floor before, but is a really interesting one, because I think a lot of us don't really have our head around where does the money in Medicare come from? And, I am sorry, I know this is a little hard to see, but if you see this, this is the entire Medicare. This 45 percent up here, that is actually general revenue. We are reaching into the General Fund and paying it out to hospitals and doctors and durable medical equipment. The 36 percent there, that is actually the tax revenue. That is the payroll tax. That is within our FICA. Then we also have some taxes on higher income earners and Social Security benefits, and it comes into here. And then you see this 3 percent down there. That is actually revenue that we pay ourselves. So we borrowed the money, gave it to the General Fund, spent it, but we paid ourselves last year what was the 3.1 percent interest. Well, that is what that 3 percent is down there. So if you actually add it up, about half of this, half of what we spend in Medicare is General Fund, half is coming in through the payroll tax. So if you look at part A, the hospital trust fund, okay, that is almost all payroll taxes. But if you start looking at part B and part D, you see the orange there, 75 and 78 percent respectively, that is all coming out of the General Fund. On occasion, when I have actually done some of these presentations at home, you will get the hand that goes up and people think that it is all paid for by the payroll taxes. That actually creates sort of this weird misunderstanding of it is not all within the trust fund. Almost half of what we spend in Medicare actually is coming out of the General Fund. And there is actually where, as we see the substantial growth, you see General Fund spending growing, and why a substantial portion of that General Fund growing is actually part of this. A couple of the other slides, just to understand, as we have 74 million of our brothers and sisters who are baby boomers moving into retirement right now--what is it, about 10,000, 10,300 every single day--it actually has a little bit of a steepening curve over the next 3 or 4 years. Now, the headline on this is really important: Social Security, Health Entitlements, and Interest Costs. So you have to put in the paying interest on all of the money we have borrowed as a society. Driving 91 percent of the 2008 to 2028 spending hikes. Remember my number before, that if we just do Social Security and Medicare over the last 10 years, 72 percent of the increased spending we had as a government, in the Federal Government, was just the growth in Social Security and Medicare. Okay. But if you add in also interest on top of it, it goes from 72 now to 91 percent. So understand, those are the levers that are going to squeeze out so many of the other things that are happening, but also the greatest fragility to being safe here. Let's actually go onto the next board because I think it helps actually sort of show where we are going. But what is also important here is, as you look at these, those on the bottom, you will actually see things like defense and discretionary spending all being fairly flatlined, even with the most recent budget appropriations bill. If you actually look at it over the next decade or over the next three decades, almost all of the growth in spending comes from the two programs and covering interest costs. This one is really noisy, and we will put these up, or put them out. Over the next 30 years--this one actually goes from 1960, but when you get here, look at the growth. You are heading towards a time, 2047. It seems like a lifetime from now, but you are in 2018 right now. So reach out 20 years from now, reach out 30 years from now. Defense is 2.7 percent of spending equal to the size of the economy, so this is a per GDP slide. But the explosion, you see that red area, in that time when I am hopefully well into my retirement, 15.6 percent of the entire size of the economy. So we are going to reach in and take--say the economy is this big--we are going to take 15.6 percent of that, and that is just going to be Social Security and Medicare. And another 6.2 percent will be covering the interest costs. It is unsustainable, when you start to realize you will be approaching 30 percent of the entire gross domestic product of this country in Federal spending. It is not defense, it is not nondefense discretionary, it is actually not even some of the other entitlements, even though sometimes that is easier to talk about behind these microphones. It really is where we are demographically as a society. And look, demographics is our destiny. We can't pretend it is not happening. We are all getting older. It is the nature of life. And understand also, these numbers are assuming no wars, no recessions, no disasters. These are just baseline numbers, and that should make this really, really scary. So how do I convince our voters and my fellow Members that we have a little bit of reprieve right now because we are in a time of terrific economic expansion, terrific employment, and good numbers coming in on the FICA tax? How do we use this as a moment to actually say, let's be adults, let's come up with something much more elegant than just entitlement reform? But there is actually ways where we can keep our promises to our seniors, keep our promises to those who are heading into their retirement, but also have it so we are not all here 15 years from now saying we have hit a deficit crisis: we can't sell our bonds, our interest rates are exploding, everyone is going to be taking huge cuts. Let's attack it today. Because I believe if we do things that maximize economic growth, things that actually help our Nation's demographics, if we adopt a very aggressive adoption of technology, particularly in the healthcare space, and also provide some options within the entitlements, it is all stuff we should have done 10 years ago, but we have been given a little bit of reprieve right now because of what is happening in the economic growth. So here is something to get our heads around. If you actually look at the numbers, you see the first two bar charts, that is Social Security. It turns out the average American will put in about $543,000 over their working life. And this is someone who would be retiring right now. And they are going to get out $616,000. So, okay, a little variance. Now, the problem is we have obviously already spent all of that money that was in the trust fund and we put IOUs in it, but still, it is a fair deal. Medicare is our crisis. Apparently, someone who is retiring today will have put in about $140,000 in Medicare taxes. But the person who retires today is taking out about $422,000. So $140,000 in, $422,000 out. Now multiply that by just 74 million of us who are baby boomers and you start to understand the size and the scale of where the gap is coming from. It is math. I desperately wish there was a way to blind the political rage and just say, it is math, and the math will always win. And if we would step up and be less political and more like accountants for a moment-- and I am sorry, I know as Republicans that is often our problem, is we sound more like accountants--but the violence, the cruelty we are going to do to our society if we continue to avoid the reality of the math, in a decade or decade and a half from now when the crisis is upon us, our ability to fix it will be very, very difficult. It is going to be difficult right now, but it is doable. There are approaches to make these numbers work. This is also, for those folks who are now deficit hawks or newfound deficit hawks, a time for a moment of honesty and reality. Over the next 30 years--and this is not inflation adjusted, so for those of you who like to do constant dollars, you would probably reduce the number by about a third--but this is over the next 30 years. So if you plan to be alive for the next 30 years, this is what you are facing today: $82 trillion in cash shortfall; $78 trillion of that is just Social Security, Medicare, and the interest on that shortfall. So all of the other things that we talk about: Oh, it is defense spending. No, it is not. Oh, it is other nondefense discretionary. No, it is not. It is other entitlement programs. A little bit, but not really. It is the two programs that are earned entitlements that we, as Congress, in its wisdom over the last few decades, didn't make the math actuarially sound. And just pretending it is not there doesn't fix it. So one more time, think about this. Over the next 30 years, the Social Security deficit, $18.9 trillion; the Medicare deficit, $39.7 trillion; and then the interest we are going to spend on those shortfalls is another $23.4 trillion. That is $78 trillion. Now, if you want to use inflation adjusted, just reduce it by a third. This is the greatest threat to our society. Because do you see at the very end, do you see the little blue, the rest of the budget actually is in balance over the next 30 years. And that is actually using the CBO scores, which I think sort of underestimate current growth. But that is just the math. This isn't Republican or Democrat; it is math. Yet, it is the greatest threat to our society. And yet, when I stand in front of my constituents and we will have a meeting and we will discuss what is the greatest threat to society, the hands go up and it becomes all sorts of things, because this is really hard, it is really big, it is really difficult, and it is really, really, really important. So as we walk through these, I need to do--and forgive my stacks of paper, but sometimes when you are trying to do the math, this is one of those where you lay out the Excel spreadsheet and it goes on and on and on and on. Think of this. In 9 years, Social Security and Medicare, without the interest, will be 10.3 percent of the entire economy. So the United States Government will say: Hey, the economy is today what the GDP is, $21 trillion, $22 trillion, $23 trillion. Hopefully, 10 years from now, it is substantially larger. But 10 years from now, it is going to be over 10 percent is just being reached in and spent on Medicare and Social Security. It is the math. But actually, over the next decade, it gets up into the 12s, and then a little while after that it goes up further. But that is of spending equal to the entire size of the economy. That is why it becomes so incredibly important that part of that holistic solution of how we save these programs is also that we maximize economic expansion. So when we get into the discussion that has happened around here a lot lately, where we talk about the tax reform and the jobs and opportunity it is creating, I have had this running conversation, and I saw it on the floor here I think yesterday, where someone is pounding: Well, tax reform is not paying for itself, tax cuts never pay for themselves. That is partially true. Certain parts don't. Certain parts are political-societal decisions to allow families to keep more, but there was an interesting little set of numbers. This often happens when you have your spreadsheets and everything laying out in front of you and you are going over them. So in December, the Joint Committee on Taxation, which, as you know, was our scorekeeper when we did tax reform, actually said: Hey, here is what we think the tax reform costs in the static; here is what we think some of the dynamic growth is going to be. But they were in two different reports. I took the business numbers, just the business portion, to see what it was doing growthwise. I thought you would all find this interesting, or maybe I am the only one. So it turns out that the business tax reform, I think the title II portion of our reform bill from December, said, hey, businesses, $653 billion in less taxes, revenues to us as a government over the next 10 years, but the international business portion of the book, we are actually going to take in another $324 billion. So $653 billion, if you are here, but because we are bringing those moneys, the repatriation of those moneys back in and actually encouraging companies to actually come back to the United States and work here, we actually gain $324 billion. All right. So I am still negative $329 billion over the 10 years on those C corps, the big corporations, but then on the next Joint Tax report, they talked about the dynamic scoring, what they saw as the growth estimates. Not to bore everyone with it, but we have already seen the CBO has actually lifted up the growth estimates from even December, so there are good things happening there. So, hopefully, these numbers would actually expand from that. But if you actually put the growth back in, they were estimating $384 billion of growth in new revenues because of the bigger economy, more business spending, more jobs, more opportunity. Now, most of that is from what was happening in those corporations. So it turns out the business portion on the tax reform bill, in the Joint Tax's own numbers, actually is about $55 billion to the upside in their own modeling over the 10 years. I partially put this up because I was embarrassed I didn't see it in their math sooner, but that is what it is. So I guess, ultimately, Mr. Speaker, I have a couple messages here. I understand we are sort of in a time of very difficult politics, but we need to sort of grow up and deal with the reality. We are getting older as a society. We have made lots and lots of promises. We need to keep those promises. There are ways to do it, but every single day we don't step up and deal with the reality of math, we make it that much more difficult for all of us. I am 56 years old. My wife, I probably shouldn't say this, but she is exactly my age. We are incredibly blessed. We have a 2\1/2\-year-old that is the best little girl ever. I have a mug that says so. She actually was with us here on the floor of the House last week. Maybe it is partially because of my little girl that I am going to double down on my efforts here. How do I get our friends on the left and our friends in the majority and say maybe it is time we do the most difficult thing any of us would ever do in our elected career, and that is actually take on the biggest issue of our times, and that is the unfunded liabilities and the promises we have made? Do we do a BRAC commission, not to close things, but to actually look at everything because is a little bit of the solution reforming how we deliver healthcare and Medicare? Is a little bit of the solution a different type of immigration system that maximizes economic expansion and benefits and demographics? Is it everything all together? Is it maximizing economic expansion so payroll taxes become much more robust? Is it actually creating a path for those who have been disaffected or are on certain types of income-based social entitlement programs that move them back into our workforce because there is opportunity? The answer is we need to do it all at the same time. But how do you get this body, with all the noise that is around us constantly, all the people banging on us constantly, the chaos that is today's media, which is an entertainment medium, get a number of people to pull out a calculator, pull out some great econometrics, understand the demographics, and do what is necessary to deal with the greatest threat to this country? And that greatest threat is not military. It is actually debt and promises we have made. As you have already seen on the slides, everything else is pretty much in balance over the next 30 years. What blows us up is the promises we have made in Social Security and Medicare. It is fixable, but we cannot continue to wait. The last thing I want to share, and I know I am backtracking a bit, there continues to be more good news that comes in from the tax reform and the positive things that are happening within the economy; but there was a great article today about what is also happening at our State and local levels, and this sort of fits into that unified theory of, if you are going to start to step up and do what is difficult, do it in a time when you have economic expansion. It turns out revenues to our States look like they are taking quite a pop upward. Also, another article, it turns out that the International Monetary Fund did a calculation and fairly stepped up world growth for the next couple years and actually gave half the credit for that growth to the U.S. tax reform, meaning what we did here in the United States actually made a poor family on the other side of the world's opportunities better. If you actually start to look at all the things that are going on around us, even in a time of turbulent politics, we have some good things happening. Now let's step up and do the really hard things, because the hard things are how we are going to be judged in our future when all of us as elected Members leave here. Will we have saved the country from its greatest threat, which is the debt that is going to come crashing down on us very, very soon? Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to remove my name as cosponsor on H.J. Res. 50 and H.R. 60.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, tonight, I wanted to do, actually, two or three things. Some of this has been bouncing in my head since we were on this floor a few weeks ago doing the tax reform discussion debate, and the number of things that were said that just sort of drive you a little crazy because the math was wrong, or there was sort of make-believe. For those who have been, shall we say, sleep deprived enough to stay up and watch some of my presentations, which I do every couple of weeks, you know I have a theme that Congress is often a math-free zone. So I thought this evening we would actually do a little math history and also talk about some really great things that are happening. This is important. Think about the economy right now and what was happening in the anticipation of tax reform and now that tax reform is passed. During the tax reform debate, we would hear arguments, often coming from our brothers and sisters on the left, talking about income inequality. So a couple of weeks ago, we did a presentation here on the floor demonstrating that if you live in the world of the last decade, where you are only growing about 1.8 percent GDP, and that joint tax and CBO--the people who are our scorekeepers--are saying, ``Hey, for the next 30 years, you are only growing about 1.8 percent GDP growth,'' that crushes people. If you care about income inequality in our society, the way you solve it is growth. And there are lots and lots of data from leftwing groups, rightwing groups, and academic groups that say that growth is the greatest cure to a society that has actually started to move apart where the haves have more and the have-nots have less. It turns out that occurs when you have a stagnant growth society. It is obvious. Think about the last 10 years. Think about the projections of going the next decade at 1.8 percent GDP growth. One of the things I wanted to talk about is: if I came to you right now and said, ``Let's just drop our partisan hats; you are not right; you are not left;'' are you joyful that we are seeing data right now, today, where folks with felony convictions are finding jobs at a rate that has not been seen in decades? How would you feel when you see other populations that have actually had a really rough decade finding jobs? Isn't that what we all come here and stand behind these microphones and talk about? Well, guess what, it is happening. If you look at some of the unemployment data, populations that have actually gone the last decade in a really rough position are finding employment, and there are some amazing indicators. Early last year, we came here and did a series of presentations on what was happening to the Social Security Disability Insurance Trust Fund. It was collapsing. About a month ago, we had a meeting with the Social Security disability actuaries. Guess what. All of a sudden we went from the trust fund is gone in about 2 years to, hey, they just added an additional 4 years on it. It turns out that parts of our society, which would have been heading towards disability payments and, therefore, leaving the labor force, were finding employment that actually worked with their difficulties. This is great. These are good things. I know in this town of Washington it is just a partisan knife fight all of the time. I understand many of our brothers and sisters on the left believe rage is a way to politically communicate. I would actually like the math. And what we are seeing happen in our communities and our society for the populations we both care about, good things are happening. So how do we build policy around here that keeps it going? The chart I have right here is sort of talking about what the projections were as of October 2017--so fairly recent data--of what was going to happen over the next couple of decades in the amount of our society that would be in the workforce, and you see these lines just crashing and crashing. And all of a sudden--do you see the little dotted line--that is what we were projecting in 2016. Then, all of a sudden--do you see the solid line--it is up substantially. And that was the 2017. What was happening between those 2 years--2016 to 2017--that, all of a sudden, we start to see a substantial hopeful increase in people saying there are going to be opportunities in the labor force? It was a combination of what this body has been doing in 2017, whether it be a rational regulatory model heading towards the optimism of tax reform. If you love and care about people, providing opportunities to have your income grow, the ability to save for yourself, your family, your kids' education, good things are happening. How do we keep it going? So I want to walk through a couple examples out there if you follow the press in our communities. I came across this story just last week in one of our counties in the southern part of Arizona, beautiful area. All of a sudden, there is such a labor demand that our local correctional facility is actually now having demand to do skills training and, actually, employment for folks that, if it were just a year or two ago, were often being discarded. Look for these stories, find joy in them, because this is what we care about: someone having an opportunity, saying they may have had a bad act in their life, but now that they are going to find employment, maybe they have a future. This is true, also, for many of our urban populations, for our low- skill populations, for populations that may not have graduated high school. We have story after story after story of employers now having the resources that they are actually providing the training for skill sets for employment. Isn't this what so many of us have gotten behind these microphones over and over and over and talked about, saying there is a way for everyone to participate in this growing economy and have a joyous, hopeful future and economic stability? So I want to actually take this a bit further. Some of this is additional discussion on the debate that happened here last month and talking about revenues. Let's see if this makes sense. My grandfather used to have a saying. He said: It doesn't matter how you play the game; it is who keeps score. I know; it is an adjustment on an old colloquialism. It turns out around here, we were having these discussions about previous tax reforms, previous tax cuts, and we would hear things, and you would go back and look it up, and the numbers were just made up. They were not what was actually done. So we are going to actually correct some of that record today. But the other thing we are going to finish on, the final two boards here, we are going to actually sort of set the benchmark, the goal line of what the tax reform is expected to produce, what the tax reform should be judged by so we never experience what we had last month where people just make math up for their own argument, but we will actually know, saying: This is the goal line. Judge us by what we call the baseline. So the slide right next to me right now was sort of talking about what we expected revenues to be. This is the history going back to 1967. You will actually see in here, from 1967 to 2016, the mean was 17.4 percent of the GDP came in as Federal revenues, and we had actually expected it to move up to about 18.4 percent. I am sorry for this, but it gives you an idea. And you are going to see this on the next couple boards. In times when we have raised taxes, when we have lowered taxes, when we have done all sorts of things, that line of the amount of the economy that comes in in Federal taxes actually stays within a very, very tight band, which lets you know maybe the fixation isn't on the tax rate but the fixation needs to be on a tax policy that maximizes economic expansion; because, if you are going to be always in there about that 17.4 to 18 percent of GDP, have a bigger GDP, have a bigger economy if you believe we need the additional revenues, which we do. So on this, I want you to sort of take a look, because, overall, you can look at times where we have had recessions and you see the revenues go down; but you will see these dotted lines here, and these are some of the different, we will call them, tax cuts, tax relief. If you look on every location, there is the 2003, and then look a year or so later, revenues spike up. In 2010, part of the Obama administration and this Congress, there was a tax change that actually gave back more revenues to workers and those who were creating employment, and revenues actually went up. So it is on the chart. You cannot pretend that there hasn't been societal and economic expansions during these times. So to actually drill this point down a bit more, in a lot of the debate we had here last month, we had Member after Member from the left come behind the microphones and say there is no such thing as a tax reform tax cut paying for itself. That is just absolutely not true. Now, there are lots of tax cuts over the history that didn't, but there are lots of them that have. So let's actually walk through the actual data. This is one of those occasions where, if you know what the baseline was, saying this is what the projections were of revenues before the change in policy, you can't keep moving the goal line after the policy is done to get your own argument to sound like it is competent. So, in this case, we are going to actually look at when we did the capital gains cuts back in, I think that was, 2003. A handful of Members here on the other side came behind the microphones and talked about how much money it lost. It turns out that is not true. So, if you actually look at the blue, that is what CBO and Joint Tax actually calculated that the revenues were going to be before those tax changes. Remember, the 2003 was functionally just a capital gains tax with a couple other things. The red was actual revenues. Now, this isn't the debt, this isn't spending, because, you understand, when you actually look at a deficit number, there are multiple parts. There is the revenue and then there is the spending around here. And this body loves to conflate that argument, saying, well, the debt went up to this. It is because we kept spending. Look at the revenues in isolation and see what happened in that trend. Well, if you look at this chart here, you actually see the red. Now, this is capital gains taxes. There were lots of predictions that said capital gains taxes, you are cutting them, obviously we are going to take in a lot less revenue. It turns out it didn't work that way. Let's walk through a couple more of these to just sort of demonstrate what that calculation is. Also, as we discussed, the previous slide was actual hard revenues. This one has its percentage of GDP, and you even notice even on a calculation the size of the economy, there were more revenues coming in after the capital gains tax cut of 2003. Many of you actually will refer to it as the Bush tax cuts. I believe they expired in 2008. Either way you try to judge it, whether it be on hard revenues or as a percentage of GDP, guess what. It not only paid for itself, it made money; and yet we have Member after Member after Member who will come behind these microphones and tell you it didn't. So let's actually look at what the actual math was. Prior to the 2003 to 2008 capital gains tax cut--sorry, I know sometimes these are big numbers and you are going sort of as fast as you can--we expected about $13 billion in revenues from those capital gains. Excuse me. It is $13 trillion over that time. If you take a look at that $13 trillion number, that is what the baseline was before the 2003 capital gains tax cuts. At the time it was modeled, CBO, Joint Tax came in and said: Guess what. You are going to go from the $13 trillion to only $12 trillion, $12.9 trillion. Turns out, though, from 2003 to 2008, when you actually calculated the actual revenues from those capital gains tax cuts, what happened? How much money did we lose? Turns out we made $77 billion more than the projection of revenues before the tax policy change. This is really, really important to get our heads around. So when someone comes behind these microphones and says, well, there is no such thing as a tax cut paying for itself, sure there is, because here is the goalpost. The goalpost was set--or goal line was set before the tax policy change. That is what the projection was over those coming years. Then when the tax policy changed, it was projected to be down here. You have got to look at the data from 2003 to 2008; and when 2008 added up, it turns out the capital gains revenue was $77 billion higher than the policy before those tax cuts. So just understand, this place loves to tell stories, but they often don't demonstrate the actual math. So let's actually talk about what is going on right now. We heard predictions of everything from the end of the world to the end of the world in regards to tax reform. As you know, there is functionally a $1.5 trillion placeholder for the tax cuts and reforms that we did in December that are now in effect. So let's actually lay this out. This is actually what the projection was going back to June. So this is fair and honest, saying this is what we call the baseline. The baseline is what we should be judged by. Every year, whether I am here or another Member is here, I am hoping someone will come up here and say: Okay, here is what we took in. Did we exceed what the baseline was? Did we get less? Well, over the next couple years, we will probably get less than that June baseline. But what also happened to the projections, the curve, the size of the economy? Remember, at the beginning of this discussion, we talked about some really neat things happening in our society. When we started to work on the actual drafting of the tax reform bill at the beginning of the year, we were living in a world that was only going to grow in the United States about 1.8 percent GDP growth, and today we are over 3. Now, some of that is anticipatory effects. Some of that is a little excitement. There is a lot of confluence. But understand what that means in revenues and opportunities and just good things for everyone in our society. So we are going to go to the next board just because this one is really hard to read. So here is what I am asking everyone to do. If you be on the left, if you be on the right, if you happen to be in the media, understand that the June number was that, over the 2017 baseline, for functionally the next 10 years, was $43 trillion of revenue. That is fair. Judge us on that. So 10 years from now, maybe someone will remember this and look back and say: Did we take in more revenues or less revenues in that time? Because, if you consider what was said by the left, it was the end of the world. So that is the baseline number. We have on the previous chart sort of what was projected each year for the next 10 years. So, if I am blessed to be here a year from now, I will come back January 2019, stand behind this microphone, and we will look at the revenues that came in in the 2018 fiscal year compared to what we projected months before the tax reform became real. Judge us by that, but don't come behind these microphones and make up Armageddon and then make up stories about what has taken place in the past. This is important, because if you care about people, if you care about opportunity, we have some real difficulties coming towards us. In lots of the data and lots of the charts, in about a decade and a half, 18 years or so, we hit a debt crisis, and your options are really simple. You have to do substantial reductions to the dollars flowing out that are substantially in entitlements because, remember, three- quarters of this government's money rolls out in entitlements. Only about 15 percent of our spending is actually defense, and another 13 or so is everything else you think of government. Three- quarters of it is Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid--all the things that are just formula. And where we are right now, the peak of the baby boom is 60 years old today. So economist after economist after economist, particularly those on the left, have told us you can't grow more than 1.8 percent GDP. You are heading towards a debt crisis. You are heading towards this Armageddon. So why wouldn't you stand up here, work to reform regulatory codes, the Tax Code, the immigration codes, these things, and maximize the things that will create growth and opportunity? I think that is just what, at least on the Republican side, we have been doing. So the reason I put up this chart is more to lay a marker. I used the term ``goal line'' before. Understand that is the number before the tax reform, and I believe a lot of it is anticipatory effects on the economy. Hold us by that. Now, who knows who will still be around here 10 years from now, but will revenue exceed $43 trillion? That is the benchmark. You can't say: Well, the debt went to this, our spending went to this, because they operate outside the revenues. That is policy decisions made here on what to spend, our disasters--God forbid--military action. But the revenue number is what we should be judged by. And when you see what is happening right now in our communities, in our society, the number of organizations that have started to pay their employees more, the number of organizations that are bringing back billions of dollars to invest here in our country, the research, the development, maybe a lot of the Malthusian economists out there--and for those of you who don't get that, go look it up--who basically said the next three decades of our life are basically constrained, dear God, I hope they are wrong. We as a body need to continue this optimistic opportunity of coming and saying: Okay. How do we get more of our brothers and sisters to actually be in the labor force? We know today we have about 6 million jobs that are going unfulfilled, lack of skills. We also know from recent publications, because of the tax reform, businesses are taking some of those resources and putting them into job training and taking populations that were often being left on the sidelines and they are being drawn in. This is wonderful. How do you actually turn to others and say: Should turning 65 or 67 be hitting a wall? How do we actually provide you the opportunity, if you so wish and so desire, to actually stay in the labor force and continue to help to grow this country? Because work, we know, is often good for the soul and the individual, but it is also really good for our tax revenues and really good for the size of our economy. Remember, the bigger the economy gets, the less that cliff, that wall, that debt crisis that is about a decade and a half away, the more that gets pushed off into the future and the demographic curve that is those of us who are baby boomers, maybe that doesn't create a debt crisis. Maybe it actually turns into an opportunity for this economy, for this society to continue to grow and be happy and healthy and prosperous. This is one of those times I get behind the microphone and I am actually excited from what I am seeing out there in the data. I ask this body, even with the partisan rancor, let's continue to adopt those policies that grow, that bring people, provide opportunities to be part of the labor force, to be part of the American Dream; and by doing that, the thing the left tells us they care about, income inequality, actually closes. The things so many of us care about of not hitting that debt crisis maybe get postponed, maybe never happen. There is a path here, but it has to be everything. It has to be the tax reform. We just accomplished that. It has to be rationalizing our regulatory system. We are working on that. It has to be an immigration system that focuses on maximizing economic expansion. It has to be the adoption of technology. We are working on it. I think we can get there. This is just fun having a chance to get behind this microphone and actually be positive and optimistic after the last few years of where things were quite dour. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in honor and tribute to Michael Ira Wiesner, who passed away April 19, 2015. This past May 30 Michael's family, loved ones, and community celebrated what would have been Michael's 70th birthday. Michael was a wonderful husband to his wife Beth, and a great role model and confidant to his children: Amy, Adam, Ben, Ana, and Ashley. Michael had great love for his family and always supported everyone in their journeys to grow and learn. Throughout his life, Michael enjoyed playing golf and spending time in Vermont and always shared his interests with his wife and children. I am proud to honor the life and legacy of Michael Ira Wiesner for his remarkable character, love of country, and care for his family-- which includes his wife Beth Wiesner, Oliver Schwab, my Chief of Staff, his wife Ana Schwab, Ashley Ellis, Amy Wiesner, Adam Wiesner, and Ben Wiesner.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I am going to give everyone a slightly different view. There was an interesting editorial this weekend in The Wall Street Journal, and it basically said: Hey, those on the left look at income inequality. Those on the right, we look at economic expansion, economic growth. They are both honorable, but if you actually look at the data of the last 10 years and our own CBO projections of the next 10 years, 1.8 percent GDP, we are in incredible trouble, because you actually look at what happens when you have this flatlined economic expansion and growth, and income inequality gets dramatically worse. You look at the charts when we have had times of economic growth, it closes and everyone gets a better chance. If you actually do care about the promises we as a government have made to retirees, working people, veterans, young people, we will not have the resources if we continue for the next 30 years, as our own CBO says, of 1.8 percent growth. Status quo is devastating.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, as we try to get the boards to line up, we are only going to do three of these today. Mr. Speaker, one of the things I wanted to do tonight, and we did it during sort of the debate earlier today--I hear lots of the discussions from our brothers and sisters on the left about the tax bill, and we often tease that this place is often a math-free zone, but I wanted to actually go a little bit bigger on why this tax bill is actually so crucial to every American, whether you be on the left, on the right, or just out there working as hard as you can and not thinking about politics. The chart I have right on the side, this is what our nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has come up with as our economic growth future. If you take a look over here, you will see 1.8 percent GDP growth for the next 10 years. But we then skyrocket up to just, actually, if you saw the details, just slightly under 2. And then the next decade, so 30 years from now, we fall back down to 1.9 percent GDP growth. Why this is crucial is, as baby boomers are retiring, we have lots of promises. You have heard discussions, just even someone that was behind the microphone 40 minutes ago, on the other side, talking about Medicare. There are estimates out there that, over the 75-year actuarial window, Medicare is $105 trillion underfunded. It is the largest unfunded liability we know in America and, possibly, the world. This is what happens when you are growing at 1.8 percent GDP. If you love people, if you want this society to have an opportunity to keep its promises to our seniors, to our kids, to that working family, we must have economic growth. I talked about this earlier today, a terrific editorial in The Wall Street Journal over this weekend, saying, hey, from the left's eyes, they think about equality, income inequality, and from the Republican side, we often sound like accountants. And I am sorry, but the math is important. We think about economic growth because, if you look at the next chart, I just want you to sort of look at the very, very end. You see this sort of gold line, green line, the other green line. Do you see the separation? That is income inequality. It has grown dramatically in the last decade. We have also grown at only 1.8 percent GDP the last decade. Slow economic expansion is where you get the income inequality. If the left here actually cared about the very issue they talk about all the time, they would be embracing tax bills, regulatory bills, things that would actually expand the size of this economy so everyone has a fighting chance. But you find the politics of division very powerful around here. Look, we all get the joke. We understand that so many of our brothers and sisters on the left, they are terrified, or their base is angry, however we want to define it. You can't let the Republicans have a victory, particularly on rewriting the Tax Code for the first time in 31 years, even though, if you actually look at many of their records in the past, they have all stood behind microphones and said the Tax Code is abysmal. It stifles economic expansion; it hurts hardworking people; and, in a low-growth environment, with this crappy Tax Code, this is what you get. But the politics are so uncomfortable that, for a lot of our friends, it is more uncomfortable to vote for something that actually might be seen as a Republican victory. So I wish I had an elegant way of begging my friends on the Democratic side, saying: Just think about it as giving every American a fighting chance because, if we start to grow, you actually get paid more; you have more job opportunities; you can save money for your retirement, for your kids. Because where we are at today and where we have been the last decade, we are in real trouble. You actually look at some of the nonpartisan groups, and even some of the partisan groups, on their analyses of what the U.S. debt structure looks like, there are many of these models that, in about 15, 18 years, they collapse, our debt to GDP. What that means is, when we say, ``Here is the size of our economy, gross domestic product--here is the size of our economy, and here is the size of our debt,'' in just a few years, we actually surpass the amount of publicly sold debt. This is not where we are borrowing from our own trust funds. The publicly held debt passes the entire size of our economy, and it keeps going and going and going and going. That is status quo. Please understand, the status quo has many of the models collapsing, much of this economy, in about 15, 18 years because our debt is so huge it consumes everything. Social entitlements right now are about three-quarters of all of our spending. Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, that includes benefits of other welfare programs, earned and unearned, that is three-quarters of our spending, and it is going to become dramatically more. So if you are someone who actually cares about health research, if you actually care about education, if you care about the national parks, if you care about the military, if you care about our relations around the world, all those are getting squeezed because of, substantially, the demographic curve we are already in, the growth of those populations, and our attempt to keep our promises. If you care about keeping our promises, you care about the economic growth; and the tax rewrite is one of the key elements in that. And, yes, it is going to also require thinking through immigration. It is going to be thinking through regulations. It is going to be thinking through the adoption of technology. But understand, you can't stand around here and give speeches about income inequality and then support the very policies that actually create it. The intellectual inconsistency around here is so frustrating. This is a really interesting board, and why it is so important is that I ask for everyone to stop thinking about the actual debt number and think about it as its ratio, as its percentage, as its burden on the size of the economy. If we have a $20 trillion economy and $20 trillion of debt, we are at 100 percent of debt to GDP. Our economy is actually a bit bigger than that, but if you actually look at this red line, that is entitlements. Do you notice all those years where it is flat? That is actually not because we were spending less money on entitlements. What that is about is we were growing as an economy. Yes, we were still spending more money, but we were growing faster than the growth in that spending. If you care about fairness, if you care about opportunity, if you care about the ability to save, if you care about income inequality, you have got to step up and do those things that are difficult--and they are very difficult--that will maximize economic expansion in this country, because the difficulties that are coming in the next decade in our inability to have enough resources or enough borrowing capacity to continue to pay is devastating. We need this economy to continue to grow. As we walk through this, I want to actually walk through also a couple of observations. And forgive me, but this is one of those opportunities where you have a few minutes to share. I hold a seat on the Ways and Means Committee. It has been fascinating. On occasion you will hear folks say: Well, this was rushed through. Well, except it was built on about a decade's worth of work. If you look at all the years that Dave Camp, the previous chairman of the Ways and Means Committee; and then the chairman after him, who happened to be Paul Ryan; and now the chairman, Kevin Brady, there are volumes and volumes of documentation. There are volumes and volumes of hearings and data. And there has got to be hundreds of hours of video out there of different hearings, both the whole committee and the subcommittees have done, in just trying to understand what affects economic growth, what works and what doesn't work. An observation. How many people in the last couple weeks have you heard walk up behind these microphones and use the early 2000s as an economic example of a tax cut? Now, understand, that was just substantially a basic income tax. It wasn't rewriting parts of the Tax Code. What so many folks forget to tell you, if you go back to 2002 and you actually look at what we call the baseline--and I am sorry, this is going to geek out a little bit-- baseline is our model of what we think revenues are going to look like and what spending is going to look like over the next decade. Then you look at those things that are referred to as the Bush tax cuts when they finally expired. You do realize the revenues--the revenues--that came into this government were $77 billion higher than the projection, yet you will hear people get up behind the microphone and say: Well, these didn't pay for themselves. But that is not the math. Now, this government spent a lot more money than was projected. We had wars, we had bailouts, we had storms. We have had all sorts of things. We spent a lot more money. But if you actually look at the revenue line when those 2002 tax cuts expired, there was $77 billion more in revenue than was projected. Is that because of the tax cuts? Partially. Maybe. But there were lots of other effects in the economy, adoptions of technology, and all sorts of things. But the basic rule of thumb is: Here is where we thought we would be, and we were $77 billion over that. Back to this concept of: Are there tax cuts that pay for themselves? Absolutely. Are there tax cuts that don't? Absolutely. And that was one of the really gut-wrenching parts of this discussion. If you actually spend some time looking at a nonpartisan group like the Tax Foundation and look at a lot of their modeling, they would come back to us and say: Hey, you could spend this money on something that is great politics, but you get almost no economic expansion from it. Or you could spend that same money or something over here that turns out not to be great politics, but is really good for the economy and really good a few years from now and someone being able to find a job, someone being able to be paid more, someone being able to save for their retirement or their kids. How do you get up in front of an audience and say, ``I know we would love to have this because this gets me reelected. But for that same money, our society, economically, will be healthier, bigger, wealthier a few years from now if you put that money in expensing, in certain types of business tax cuts, because that expands the size of the economy''? That is something a lot of folks haven't thought about as they grind through the technical details of thousands of thousands of pages of the Tax Code. Parts of the Tax Code are absolutely an economic document. How you make us competitive in the world again? How do you maximize economic expansion? How do you maximize opportunity for everyone to have a good-paying job? But a Tax Code is also a political document. These are things that are very popular. These are things that get us elected. These are things that certain special interests line up at our door, walk around the hallways. If you actually saw the hallways over the last few months, I didn't know there were that many lobbyists in this town, all advocating for something for their business, for their State, for their community. All are honorable. But you have got to understand, when we put together a few-hundred-page bill and grind through it month after month after month and make a change here and a change here, and then realize the interactivity when they actually model it turns out this idea blows up this idea, the number of hours that have gone into making this math work are stunning and it is a really good document. Is it everything all of us would want? No. Being a Representative from Arizona, I believe it is really good for my State. But the thing I care most about is it being good for our country. I believe the tax bill, the tax reform, is fair to individuals. It is simpler. It is going to also deal with the hemorrhaging we have of corporations--and these are big corporations--leaving our country, hiding their profits overseas, and moving their expenses to the United States. Is that fair? Of course it isn't, but that is what the current Tax Code allows. If you hear someone saying, ``Vote `no' on this bill,'' if you hear them saying, ``We prefer the status quo,'' understand what they are saying: We want to live in a world of absolute mediocrity, with almost no economic growth, no opportunity to save, have higher salaries and higher opportunities. We are happy having, in a decade and a half, a debt crisis in this country. And what they are also saying is they are okay with the hemorrhaging of American industry leaving this country because of the tax arbitrage, where they can get a better deal in other parts of the world. That is the absurdity of some of the arguments you have heard around this body. So back to my fairly snarky comment: We get the joke. We understand there are many out there who are terrified of Republicans getting a win here. But I want to argue that this is not a win for Republicans. It is a win for our society because, if we start moving away from that 1.8 percent economic growth that our congressional budget has projected for the next decade, we have a fighting chance to financially keep our promises, to have a strong military, to have that money for our education, to have that money for healthcare research, and for you as an American citizen to see your salaries increase, see your ability to save, and know you have a brighter future. Mr. Speaker, just as an idiosyncrasy, over the last couple months, I have been keeping a little bit of a notebook of many of the comments that have come from my brothers and sisters in this body, some supporting the tax bill and making claims, many opposing the tax bill and making claims. I am going to make a mark in my calendar, 1 year from now coming back behind this microphone, and we are going to open up that journal and we are going to read what was said. Hopefully the American people at that time will understand this is political rhetoric and this is actually based in math. And that math, I am desperately hoping and desperately believing, is going to be great for our country. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, we all have subjects that we find fascinating. For 25 years, I have actually kept files of abstracts on this because I actually participated in writing Arizona's 1993 concealed carry law. I desperately wish this was an intellectually honest conversation about the data, because we all want our communities and families to be safer. I believe I can show you the statistical abstract data. In States like Arizona, adjusted for population, the violent use of firearms is almost one-half of what it was before the adoption of our concealed carry law. Now, was concealed carry responsible for that? Of course, not. But it is a factor. Some of it is mental health, some of it is law enforcement, some of it is incarceration. It is complicated. But if you actually look at these data abstracts of crime statistics in the United States on the misuse of firearms, it turns out that States that have adopted concealed carry compared to States that have gone other directions, States that adopted have gotten safer. There is actually some brilliant articles when you compare Florida and Illinois: big, populated, demographically complex States. Florida has gotten dramatically safer. Illinois has not. If you really love our families, love our communities, this needs to be an intellectually sound discussion of what factors make us safer as a society. I believe this bill leads us in that direction.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, before I start, what I wanted to share is I have been blessed to be on the Ways and Means Committee now for 11 months. I have found the members on the left, the right, a group of folks with pretty high IQs. It is a smart bunch. We have different views, even within our own, within your own, but it is fascinating. It is joyful to be on a committee where when you do argue with each other, particularly when we have conversations in the back, they happen at a fairly high level. Can I give you sort of a personal global view of how I am viewing this tax reform? I truly believe this will be the single biggest, most important vote I make in my life. We all know what status quo is. Status quo, in many of the models, basically says, in about 15, 18 years, we hit a debt crisis. Are we arguing here for status quo or our change, or are we having an argument here that you don't like our changes, but you also agree we need to have a revolution in our economic growth? If we build our lives as it is set right now with a 1.8, 1.9 percent GDP growth for the next three decades, my 2-year-old's future is miserable. Those very seniors whom someone was just speaking about, do you understand what happens to those earned entitlements? There is no money. We hit a debt crisis. We are just a few years away from publicly held debt equaling the size of our entire economy. If you love people, if you care about this country keeping its promises, we have got to grow. We have seen the attempts at sort of managed economy, managed control, managed targeted. How about something much more elegant: let's make us competitive in the world again; let's get rid of all the lobbyist-created little special deals in the Tax Code, or as many as we can politically, and do everything we can to get this economy growing. Yes, it is going to require more, in my view of the world, than tax reform. We are going to have to deal with immigration, we are going to have to deal with technology, we are going to have to deal with regulation, but we all know around here that if we do not have a revolution in this Tax Code, our future is pretty dark. With economic growth, our future is actually really bright. When you see the Atlanta Fed telling us, just in anticipation of tax reform, we have crossed 3\1/2\ percent GDP growth right now, maybe that 1.8 percent misery of economic growth isn't our future, isn't the future for my little girl, isn't the future for every American, but it is an opportunity for this country to start looking as it should: a land of opportunity.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to the Grand Opening of the Boulder Crest Retreat for Military and Veteran Wellness in Sonoita, Arizona. Boulder Crest Retreat is a facility that provides free accommodation, recreational and therapeutic activities, and breakthrough combat stress recovery programs for veterans and their families as they make the transition home from war. This desert oasis focuses on healing activities for our Nation's bravest. Here, they have the opportunity to participate in a range of outdoor recreational activities such as hiking the Arizona Trail, and are provided with a number of positive growth activities including meditation, journaling, and music, canine and equine therapies. This is complemented by Boulder Crest's signature Progressive and Alternative Training for Healing Heroes (PATHH) programs, which is based on the science of post-traumatic growth. Its success is visible by the testimonials from those that have benefitted from this program. I would like to recognize Ken and Julia Falke, who founded Boulder Crest Retreat, the hardworking staff, volunteers and the organizations that have been so charitable in funding these important facilities. Additionally, I would like to recognize the A. James and Alice B. Clarke Foundation's generous donation, which paved the way to bring Boulder Crest Retreat to Southern Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I have a strong appreciation for our veterans, their families and the sacrifices they made so that our fellow citizens may enjoy the freedoms and opportunities that make America great. I wish only the greatest success for this facility going forward in its mission to help our service members focus on strong, positive growth.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, I want to do actually two or three things specifically tonight. One is walk through a bunch of data on why the tax reform proposal is actually just sort of crucial to our society and where we are going and, number two, actually walk through some impressions of being one of the new members on Ways and Means. I have been here in the U.S. House; now I am in my seventh year here. I have only been on the Ways and Means Committee now for a year. It has been one of the most fascinating experiences of my life because of the number of meetings, the diving into data, the ability to sort of make things mesh together and make the math work, with an understanding of how serious this is. The problem is, in the somewhat toxic partisan environment we are in right now, I know there are some of my friends on the other side who are really uncomfortable with the idea of Republicans having a win. I know there are others who are constantly looking for what the partisan wedge is. I am going to ask, at least for just a couple of moments, that we sort of think through something altogether. We are going to walk through some of these boards. If you see this one right here, this is with the borrowing from all the trust funds. But our country is already 105 percent of debt. If you add up the publicly held debt and that from borrowing from the trust funds, it is over 105 percent of debt to GDP. Lots and lots of economists get really nervous when you start to say: Hey, in just a few years, the amount of debt issued by this government will be the size of the entire economy. This is issue, not borrowing from trust funds. Understand that the curve is steepening because the trust fund balances are falling. We are finally hitting that inflection period where demographics are moving our numbers. Remember, the peak of the baby boom is 60 years old today. We have obligations that we as a society have made to our brothers and sisters who are getting older. We have a real problem. You are going to see in a number of these slides that if we continue to stay as a society, as a country, that is only growing. Remember, the projection right now is 1.8 percent growth over the next 20 years. You mathematically cannot meet your obligations. It is called a debt crisis. It is called an entitlement crisis. One of the key solutions to being able to meet our obligations, to meet our promises, is we need a society, an economy that is growing. If you love people, if you care about them, if you want them to be able to save and have opportunity and a future, you need a society that is economically expanding. I accept that this body is often about our next reelection. This is an observation that I learned this year. There are some things that are in the Tax Code that are brilliant politics. They get you reelected. They give you something warm and fuzzy to go talk about at home. They are really bad economics. It is hard to stand in front of a group and say: Hey, we get to deduct State and local taxes. Yay. Then you look at the economic expansion modeling of it and there is almost no economic growth for a huge amount of spending. I know it is a sensitive issue with a lot of my brothers and sisters here on both the right and left who are from high-tax jurisdictions, but understand one of the reasons it has been looked at is that it is a tremendous amount of spending in the Tax Code and there is almost no economic expansion from that spending. Whereas, if that same spending in the Tax Code is in things that grow businesses, grow job opportunities, grow the ability to save, you can actually see the modeling where the economy gets bigger, where all of us have job opportunities, and over the coming years, you get paid more because the economy is growing. This is great politics. This is good economics. I don't think those of us on the Republican side know it--and I know so often we get behind these microphones and we all sound like accountants on steroids--but the math is important. How many times has this body made public policy that felt good, that was good politics, and really crappy economics? That is how you wake up one day and your society is $20 trillion in debt and the curve is about to blow off the charts. Remember, a lot of outside groups on the right and left have been doing modeling, saying there will be a debt crisis in about a decade and a half. It is coming, and it is coming very, very fast at us. To have an understanding of just how difficult these numbers are, on this chart I have up here, do you see the red area? This is for 2027. But you figure we just finished the 2018 appropriations and budgets, so we are already starting to plan the 2019. Well, 8 functionally budget years from now, only 11 percent of this Federal Government's spending will be for things that people think of as government. Everything else--defense and entitlements, mandatory spending, both earned entitlements and unearned entitlements--will be everything other than 11 percent of the spending. Public lands, the FBI, the Justice Department, the Park Service, health research, education, all the things you think of as government will be only 11 percent of our spending. Everything else will be either military--the military will also be only 11 percent--and everything else after that is mandatory. It continues to grow that way. If you are someone who cares about education, who cares about the environment, who cares about these things, understand that if you do not start to get some dramatic economic growth, you are going to be squeezed out. The dollars spent on your priorities are disappearing. It is math. We do not have the revenues. It is going to get crushed. It is coming very, very fast. This isn't Republican math or Democrat math. It is math. What if I came to you right now and asked: What is one of the most powerful things we can do as a society to keep our promises? My brothers and sisters on the left often talk about our promises to retirees. They are absolutely right. The fact of the matter is, I believe that for someone who retires in the next couple of years, they will have put in about $190,000 for their Medicare. They are going to receive over $600,000. That is in, like, dollars. Multiply that by 76 million baby boomers in that 18-year period. In just that differential, understand that one of the root causes is demographics. We still made a promise. The way you are able to cover that promise is economic growth. When you look at this chart, it is fairly new from a Stanford economist. I found this in a book about 2 months ago. Do you see that red line on the left-hand side? Do you see where it lays fairly flat? That is actually a line that says: ``Entitlement spending to GDP.'' The size of the economy, the entitlement spending in the 1990s, in the late 1980s didn't go down. It was still going up. The difference was the economy got bigger. So when you hear us talk about debt-to-GDP ratios, start thinking about that denominator. How do you grow the economy so that if we keep our promises, it doesn't crash the economy and functionally almost bring the world down? We have some charts that make it very clear that when we have been in times of economic expansion, we have even been able to spend more money on these entitlement programs; yet we bent the debt curve and the amount of that consumption to the size of the economy. I know this gets a little geeky, but at some point the math is important. I know we just spent a couple of hours talking about peoples' feelings on a 400- or 500-page tax bill, but let's get some of the math correct. Understand that the chart next to me is sort of the CBO projections. The math is worse than even the CBO projections. If you can look--and I know this is small--but the CBO missed the 2017 number by over $100 billion. The fiscal year we just finished, the 2017 fiscal year, we borrowed $666 billion. This is one of the good years. So, remember, you have heard people talking about in a static score over the next decade--10 years--this tax bill costs a $1.5 trillion. But we borrowed $666 billion last year, with no tax relief and a government policy that functionally gave us a 1.8 percent GDP. Take a look at this year. It was supposed to get much better, but now that we know we have the spending for the hurricanes and disasters, we know we are going to blow through that. If you can see it in about 4 budget years, because of that 1.8 percent economic expansion, we are going to start borrowing $1 trillion a year. Yes, building a tax bill with $1.5 trillion borrowing over 10 years is something you have to really think about. You need to design it so we get the economic expansion so that the size of the economy gets bigger so there are opportunities to take in new revenues. But do understand that if you are part of the side that you are just hearing supporting the status quo, the status quo is already a disaster and is just on the cusp of time. The disaster is already here. The disaster is status quo and doing more of the same. In 4 budget years, you are borrowing $1 trillion a year, and it goes up from that. So doing nothing, continuing the status quo, is the entitlement crisis, is the fiscal cliff, is the debt crisis. We don't have a choice. We must get together and do what is necessary to get this economy growing. We heard one of the previous speakers--who is one of the people I really like; he is a good guy; a Democrat of Illinois--talk about the Tax Foundation. I sort of forgot this part. This is a quote from the Tax Foundation study. It is $1 trillion in new revenues. Our static score that we are doing--and the Tax Foundation score is higher in spending--but our model says it is $1.5 trillion of spending in the Tax Code static. That means no economic growth. We are going to talk about what dynamic growth is. They say a new, additional trillion dollars of revenue. That is what we call dynamic scoring. What is dynamic scoring, you may ask. Dynamic scoring is nothing more than asking: How does this policy affect the size of the economy? And then you loop it back and look for the feedback effects. If you are a Democrat and you are saying, ``I don't believe in dynamic scoring,'' you really need to think about that position because you believe in dynamic scoring when the left introduced an immigration bill. It was dynamically scored. Global warming. If you actually look at the scoring, it has feedback effects. Go back to the stimulus. We all use dynamic scoring around here. We just seem to only want to embrace it when it supports our own political views. Every March, the Congressional Budget Office gives us an update that has economic feedback effect in it. That is called dynamic scoring. For both my friends on the right and the left, you can't just pretend that public policy has no effect in the size of the economy when it is contrary to your certain political pitch that you are making right now. Just understand, the Tax Foundation says $1 trillion in new revenues. But the other things that are really important--and this actually starts to give you an understanding of some of the effects--is we have close to $300 billion in new payroll taxes. Understanding that Social Security and Medicare are pay-as-you-go programs, today's taxpayers are functionally paying today's recipients. That is why I have been behind this microphone over the last year talking about things like demographics and birth rates and the really dangerous effects these low birth rates are having in the society, but that is other stuff. We will have almost $300 billion in new payroll taxes. So I have $1 trillion in new income taxes and close to $300 billion in new payroll taxes for what we model is a trillion-and-a-half-dollar static score. You may not like the numbers, but the Tax Foundation is really good at this. They have some of the most advanced models that exist anywhere in this country and it is worth going to and reading their information. Right now, when you hear us talking, we are giving you just static scores. It is important to know that the freaky smart people are out there modeling, saying what we are doing is expanding the size of the economy as you go into the future. Why is this so critical? If you see this chart, this is what is being projected for our future. This is the CBO's estimates over the next, I believe it is, three decades. Functionally, a 1.8 percent GDP growth. This is their projection. This is what they see our future looking like. But if you go back to the 1950s--to 1973, yeah, we had a demographic bubble that was young and moving into the workforce. If you look at the late 1970s, 1990s, we were actually doing an average of 3.3 percent GDP a year. If you actually are someone like I am where you just are fascinated-- GDPNow, which is the Atlanta Fed's calculator, right now, has our GDP, as of today, at 3.2 percent GDP. That is amazing. The model we have been given says we should be at 1.8. We are substantially above that right now in anticipation of tax reform. Apparently, a lot of the economy out there is already anticipating a better regulatory market and a better tax regime, and, with that, they are spending, they are investing, and we are already seeing it in the baseline numbers. This is something we can't screw up. It is incredibly important. So let's try to understand, once again, if you care and love people and want them to have an economic future, why that growth is so incredibly important. If you actually sort of look at the difference-- and this is sort of a difficult chart to understand. But if we are sitting here somewhere between this 1\1/2\ and 2 percent GDP growth, and you wanted to double the size of the economy, you are looking at having to wait over 35 years. What happens if we were in the very tail end? And look, from my own math, I don't think we get there. We might have some years that touch it. But what would happen if you were at 4 percent GDP growth? You go from over 35 years to a little over 17 years to double the size of the economy. Well, how about if we could beat 3\1/2\ percent GDP? You go from over 35 years to 22 years. Just understand the size of the economy has almost everything to do with what you are paid, your ability to have a pay raise, your ability to have enough cash flow in your life so you can save for your retirement. I know this seems like an academic lecture, but it is not. These things affect our lives. They also affect our ability to pay our promises. It also affects our ability to protect our Nation. It is not a game. So another way to sort of look at the same numbers--and I just happen to like this chart, so that is one of the reasons we are putting it up. You can see sort of the bubbles. What would it take to sort of double that GDP per person? You know, okay, so instead of the entire economy, how about you, as an American citizen, the size of the economy as you-- because as a participant in the economy, this has something to do with what you are paid, your ability on your lifestyle, the things you can own, the things you can do for your family. The difference between the 2 percent--and let's just jump up to 4 percent, and the number of years, you start to realize the difference between 17 years or 35 years. This is about every one of us as an individual in this country that if we can adopt tax policy, that is good for families, good for the middle class, but also makes us competitive in the world again, and we start to grow, good things happen. Do you do a Tax Code that is great politics or really good economics? Some of the math is hard. We live in a society right now where if you can look at the very far left side of this chart, the top 20 percent of our society, of our income earners--the top 20 percent of income earners are paying 88 percent of the Federal income taxes. You start to understand. If I came to you right now, just as a simple math problem, and said, ``Hey, I have got 20 percent of very high income earners who are paying 88 percent of all the Federal income taxes, but I really want to make sure that the quartiles of our hardworking middle-income earners are getting a lot of this benefit,'' you can understand why there were such great math problems in making these things work, because 88 percent of all your Federal revenue is sitting out here with 20 percent of the population. That is actually why we have had to do a lot of the things we have done. And where certain deductions, certain things phase out, it is just a math problem. But remember, you see that red line, and you see where it crosses the blue line? That is where publicly held debt will exceed the size of our economy. This government will have issued debt to foreign buyers, to your retirement account, to pension funds that will exceed the size of this economy, and it is only a few years away, and that is what the status quo is. That is where we are going. I will make you the argument, we don't have a choice. We must make a simpler, a fairer, but a dramatic and more progrowth tax system as part of this country's culture. In being blessed to now be on the Ways and Means Committee, which I am incredibly appreciative--they are some of the smartest people I have ever worked with, are really smart calculators and people--there is something called Joint Tax. If you ever want to know where all the freaky smart people or president of your high school math class are, there is 50 of them in there. I think like more than half may have Ph.D.'s in math and statistics and accounting. They tell us, the testimony to the committee is, 94 percent of the tax paying population will now do their taxes on this. Only 6 percent of taxpayers in the country will need to itemize. There is actually some really interesting math that also starts to happen when you have made a tax system fairer, simpler, and progrowth. But the simplicity of it makes compliance, makes the ability to pay, makes the ability to participate so much easier and so much more elegant. I have been proud to be part of the team that has helped build this tax plan. It is not perfect, and it is still going to go through a couple of more changes. That is the way it works. We will get the Senate product; we will sit in conference committee; we will work out the math; but understand the status quo is disastrous for every American, and I actually believe it is disastrous for the world. The tax reform gives us an opportunity to grow and have an incredibly bright future if we do it the right way. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Madam Speaker, this is one of those moments where-- and forgive me, but I sometimes feel like I live and work in a math- free zone, because you can't intellectually have it both ways, where you are talking about the great difficulties coming, and then when you bring in the actual data and you actually start to look at the charts that we all see, it isn't in the future, it is right on the cusp of us, and that is the debt and entitlement crisis. If we do not start to get some economic growth, we are in so much trouble. If you really care about Medicare, Medicaid, the children, this education program, this health research, where is the money coming from? It is on the cusp. This is less than a decade away. In just a few years, we cross 100 percent of GDP, and that is publicly held, and then the ability to sell the bonds if we do not get economic growth. But if you look at the last 30 years in the charts and the data--and I am sorry, I know this is small and I know it is math, so it is uncomfortable for a lot of people in this body. If you actually look across here and you see, this is entitlements to GDP, when we have been in times of economic expansion, all of a sudden our ability to finance, to maintain the promises we have made as a society, if the math works. And this is a commonality we both understand, economic growth is our only path. Because if it is not, are you on your side ready to do fairly draconian cuts? If we actually look at some of the data that has come from the Tax Foundation, the Tax Foundation's modeling says $1 trillion of additional taxes, but almost $300 billion in additional payroll taxes over the 10 years. I have already heard a couple people get behind the microphone here and use the term that the trillion and a half is dynamically scored. No. That is a static score. All dynamic scoring is--so we all have a commonality--you calculate back in the size of the economy. You loop back in the size of the economy, and you can't have it both ways. You either support dynamic scoring or you oppose it for global warming. You oppose it for immigration. You oppose it for the stimulus, because we actually, as a body, every March, when CBO brings us the numbers, they give us a number that has been dynamically scored. I know we all want what is best for this Nation, but as I dig through the math, if we get the economic growth that I believe this tax model, so many of the very difficult decisions we as a body have to make over the next decade get much easier. Let's hope we get there.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Huizenga for yielding me time. A little bit of history: this piece of legislation, the underlying idea, actually was fostered a few years ago. One of my closest friends in Arizona, Lakshmi, is freaky smart, electrical engineer, off the charts IQ. He and I were having a conversation about a company that he was really interested in that had been started by a handful of his old friends. Well, it turns out his old friends had gone through all this process, and he had just sort of been watching what they were doing. Now, Lakshmi is an absolute expert on the technology that these gentlemen are putting together, but because of a series of timing and other things, he was walled off from investing in a company that was using a technology he was an absolute expert in, because he didn't meet the accredited investor standards. He didn't have the million dollars in the bank. His argument to me was, should his knowledge on a company and its product, their risk profile, its opportunity to succeed and its potential failure in the marketplace be based on his bank account, or should it be based on his knowledge? Now, the legislation has gone through a couple generations of compromise. I personally preferred the original bill, a bit more expansive, but this is a good thing, because for our brothers and sisters on both sides of the aisle here, I think we are embracing this concept that we all care about the curve where we are seeing the wealthy getting wealthier in the United States and much of our hardworking middle holding sort of flat. This is one of the reasons: we have created these definitions where accredited investors, I think only, like, 600-some-thousand people, have gone through the process to hold that designation in our society, meaning it is a tiny sliver of our society that is allowed to invest in these types of businesses. We have a bureaucracy that for how many years now the regulator has said: Your ability to invest in these types of organizations is based on your bank account. Today, we take the sort of first step on a bipartisan basis to say: Yes, bank account is one, but how about your risk tolerance, your knowledge, your expertise, and your understanding that many of these fail, and many of these businesses become amazing successes, but are you able to process both the technology, the risk, and the information? For many of us, we are hoping that the opportunity to be part of the investor class starts to become much more egalitarian across our society instead of just being the hallmark of the ultrawealthy in our country. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Huizenga for giving me a moment and for moving this bill forward.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, my hope is that you find this as entertaining as I did putting some of this together. Actually, let's put these boards up. We are going to actually do something that, with the rollout of the tax reform mechanics--and I apologize to everyone. Some of this is going to be a little geeky. But I wanted to try to put some things in perspective because I have heard some and read some crazy stuff the last couple of days. So we are going to actually do some dynamic scoring 101. And, actually, at that moment, I think I just heard thousands, if not tens of thousands, of C-SPAN watchers just turn their televisions off. But this is actually important, because every time we are heading towards working on major tax reform or other types of programs that actually have big, bold policy built within them, we get into this sort of debate. What are the effects? What are the effects on society? What are the effects on tax revenue? What are the effects on labor participation? What are the effects on our entitlement programs? And there is sort of this intellectual duplicity around this body. I know that is a little harsh, but we have got to be honest about it. If it were the stimulus package from President Obama several years ago, we had lots of Members on this side who actually talked about, supported, and thought the dynamic scoring models were great. But when we actually talk about something within the Tax Code, rewriting the Tax Code, well, then dynamic scoring is just unacceptable. So I am going to ask everyone to open up your minds and first understand, when we talk about scoring, what we really mean. And we are going to touch on a handful of things, and this is going to be very elementary, sort of basics. So we are going to walk through a number of these. And then I have a number of slides that we will get to in a moment that are more about examples of what math means when looking at it. And the fact of the matter is, there are such things as tax cuts that do not pay for themselves, but there are also such things, actually, as tax policy that do pay for themselves. You have to just choose and be willing to work through the math, and the history of math, and stop being afraid of data around this place. I get behind this microphone quite often and run this joke that this is sort of a math-free zone. And I am working really hard to drag my brothers and sisters on both sides to understand that sometimes the folklore we believe in is correct, but a lot of times it just isn't. First off, before we do some of the slides, I want to walk through some of the terms. How often do you hear us talk about the baseline? Okay, we talk about it all the time. The baseline is this--you do realize, the baseline actually does have a series of dynamic aspects when we build it. Why do you think, when we come out here every March, or like we did this last March and then again in June, all of a sudden the numbers have changed? That is a case where the world did not stay static. We didn't create a number a year ago, and that is what the world stayed. Remember, we went through this really ugly, uncomfortable thing this year, where, in just a few months, the deficit actually grew dramatically to the point where we are almost borrowing $700 billion this year. And if we went back a year and a half, we thought this year we might be as low as $500 billion, $550 billion. So if we had stayed static, we would still be just pretending that we were at that number. We recalculate constantly. But it is not just calculating, hey, here are the tax revenues. It is also, hey, we see this trend in number of people taking jobs; hey, we see this trend in number of people signing up for entitlement benefits. So understand, we already, for years, and years, and years, have lived in a dynamic scoring sort of model right now, and we call it our baseline. I also want us to try a couple other things. I want us to think about dynamic scoring as not that number that is given to us but as a way of ranking decisions. So if I came to you right now and said, ``Hey, we have these things in the tax policy, and here are the effects we believe we see as we have the information today,'' think of it as a tool for making decisions, not that that number is the same number that it is going to actually produce 10 years from now. With the best data and information we have today, if you as a policymaker--if you are blessed to be one of us who gets to be in this body saying, well, it turns out if I spend the money on this type of tax change compared to the same money on this type of tax change, I get this different effect in the size of our economy, in the number of our brothers and sisters who have jobs and employment opportunities, but also in what it effects in tax revenues. So I know that is culturally hard for a lot of us because we all like to beat up CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation. But in all fairness, a dynamic scoring model is a ranking model. What is the real difference? If I asked you just to say in a single sentence we all had to agree upon a common definition of here is static, here is dynamic, the real difference is a dynamic score has calculations that reflect changes to the size of our economy, which is really important. Now I am going to digress to one side. About once a month I get behind this microphone, and we do a series of slide presentations on how much trouble we are in. The fact of the matter is that in not that distant of a future, we will barely have the revenues to cover our entitlement costs. We are living in a society right now where about three-quarters of our spending is what we call mandatory spending--both earned and unearned entitlements--your Medicare is an earned entitlement. Your Social Security is an earned entitlement. But we also have other types that you get because you fell below a certain income or you may be part of a certain group. But the vast majority of what we do in this body is not managing the three-quarters of our budget that is on autopilot. These are by formula. If you look at that sort of remaining 25, 27 percent of our budget, well, about a little more than half of that is defense, and everything else is what people think of as government--that is the FBI, that is the National Park Service, that is the FDA, and that is education and research. That will continue to shrink, and it is going to start shrinking fairly dramatically because baby boomers are retiring. Remember, the peak of the baby boomer is only 60 years old right now. We have our brothers and sisters whom we have made promises to, and this body never sat down and did the hard math to be prepared for what happens when 76 million of our brothers and sisters move into their retirement benefit years. So one of the critical reasons you do tax reform is economic growth, because without economic growth, it gets really ugly in about a decade. I continue to be sort of shocked that my brothers and sisters, particularly on the left, who claim to be sort of evangelical advocates for a lot of this entitlement spending, aren't standing alongside of us and saying: We need to do a major rewrite of our Tax Code. That does just a couple of things. It makes it fairer, and it makes it more simple, but it dramatically--over the next 10, 15, 20, 30 years--expands the size of this economy, because without that expansion, the math is just ugly. A great example of this is when we talk about dynamic scoring. If you do actual dynamic scoring on what is about to happen over the next, functionally, 20 years of where we are demographically, the models don't work. The actual computer comes back to you and says: Doesn't work, doesn't work, doesn't work, because the math is impossible. Functionally, the amount of debt to the size of our economy gets so big that the models basically say that society has collapsed. You can't float another bond, and you can't borrow money from anyone else. It comes to an end. When the computer tells you that, when the computer starts giving you a red flashing--maybe if you don't believe those of us who get behind the microphone, maybe they will believe the data. Let's go ahead and start to walk through some of the slides. We are going to walk through a series of these ideas. I am probably going to say parts of this two or three times to have it sink in. We have already had a number of our folks quoted in the press and others showing their cynicism towards dynamic scoring. But those are some of the very same people who actually stood in this same well and promoted the immigration reform and the dynamic scoring that was built into the immigration reform. They are the same folks who actually promoted the dynamic scoring that was built in the stimulus bill several years ago. But they are also the same folks who actually believe things like global warming mechanisms, which are built on a dynamic scoring model, are the absolute facts of math. You can't have the intellectual duplicity of saying: I believe in this sort of modeling math for things I am ideologically comfortable with, but things I am ideologically not comfortable with is not true. It is math. Let's try one more time because if we are going to come to policy decisions, we have got to stop living in sort of a math-free zone. I am doing this as more of an example. None of this is actually policy in the tax reform that those of us on the Ways and Means Committee are so incredibly blessed to be working on. It has been the most interesting year of my life grinding out this math. I can't tell you the number of times that I thought I had a brilliant idea, you work it out, and you find out that the really smart people around you had all figured out all sorts of ways to get around your Tax Code changes. So sometimes you have got to be humble and just understand that what we are doing is tough. It is complicated. If you make one change over here in the Tax Code, then it turns out it affects over here and creates leakage over here. So that is why you have to do this unified theory. Just so we see this conceptually, if I came to you right now and said, Hey, we have this much money--I think in this model it was $70 billion or $60 billion. The actual dollar amount isn't that important. If I came to you right now and said, ``You have this much money, you have got to make a Tax Code change with that money,'' if we did a static score, then the model says it costs you that much money. If you spent $60 billion on this over the 10 years, then it costs $60 billion. Then when we do the dynamic scoring, it turns out that not all tax changes produce the same amount of economic growth, even though it may promote fairness, it may promote simplicity, and there may be some things we haven't calculated. So on this one, if we take a look over here, this was actually something we took from the Tax Foundation's website. I encourage you to go there. It is a nonpartisan group, and it has some really interesting modeling. If we functionally doubled the child care tax credit to a couple thousand dollars, it turns out the model over 10 years functionally adds almost nothing to GDP growth. Now you will want to try to model it saying: Does it change birthrates? As you know, we are in a societal crisis right now where our birthrates are falling so low that mathematically, in about 20 years, we are going to have some real difficulties having enough taxpayers moving into society's workforce to actually pay for our pay-as-you-go entitlements. Social Security and Medicare are pay-as-you-go entitlements. Today's workers are paying for today's retirees. If that population mix of workers moving in gets too out of whack, then the math gets really uncomfortable. For the same costs, if I came down and in this particular model reduced marginal tax rates, or we have another one where you are going to see we are expensing, which is a type of sort of depreciation that you can take all at once, then all of a sudden this one gets me almost no GDP growth. But the same dollars at that get me well over a point of additional GDP growth. If I am standing in an event back in Arizona and say, ``We are going to spend $60 billion, and we are going to double the child care tax credit,'' that helps me get re-elected. But if I come and say, ``We are going to spend $60 billion changing the marginal tax rates for corporations, or the exact same money for expensing so businesses, particularly smaller businesses, buy new plants and equipment so we get more efficient so we have more growth so more people have jobs,'' then intellectually we know this is really important for everyone in our society. But this one down here is easier to talk about and easier to get reelected. That is the tough thing here when we live in a world of these pithy, little sound bites, where we say these quick, little simple things then march off and the intellectual discourse of, hey, it is harder than that, we need to find a way to be simpler and fairer, but we also have to be rational on what creates the next generation of economic growth so our brothers and sisters actually have jobs, they have chances to save, chances to have money to put their kids through college, and even their own retirements. We are going to walk through a few more of these examples, and then I have some actual data examples of where this is actually happening in our lives. Now, this slide is a little bit on the geeky side, so forgive me, but this is dynamic scoring 101. All this slide I really want you to look at is, when modeling, it is not only where the money goes, but did it increase the capital stock, and, therefore, there is more capital in these businesses and in these organizations to expand and buy equipment and provide employment, or did it not? But there is also: Did the tax change that creates that new capital stock stay in our Tax Code long enough that the next generation of new, more efficient equipment, new productivity moves in? We actually have some really interesting examples that have been produced datawise on what happens if a Tax Code change phases out. We see this a lot where we have done these, hey, this marginal tax rate for business is for 5 years, and then it goes back to the old higher rate. Or what we are struggling through right now is how to get as much economic growth as possible if we create a type of expensing or accelerated type of depreciation, and what happens in the future of that? Does it phase out? And if it does phase out, what are the economic effects? If you take a look at the green line, you can see what it actually meant both for GDP growth and also for attached within those numbers are revenues. Do you see the red line? So we both have a sympathetic curve here, and then the value of that actually fades away and actually falls, in some occasions, below what would have been a static score because you get the spike of people saying: We have to invest, we have to do this right now, and now we have to back off because of next year. A good example is if I came to you right now and said: Today you have this tax rate, but 2 years from now we double it, what are you going to do with your life? We are going to work like crazy this year, and that 2 years from now, you are planning on taking a vacation year. It is human nature, and I think we have to stop pretending that the Tax Code somehow operates just outside human nature. We will grind through some of these a little faster. At the end, we are going to talk about where you can see all these different charts. Why this is important is when you actually look at the effects of the deficit--and where this was interesting is this was just revenues taken out of society in the ACA, sort of the economic effects of what would happen when we actually did the microeconomic movement calculations, and you actually see if we did repeal those additional dollars-- because, remember, this is costing, there is an additional special tax on capital gains and what it is actually doing in economic growth. We have a lot of slides, so I am going to try to go through some that are a little more entertaining. What we are trying to show here is what happens when you take, actually, the exact same functional cost with dynamic effects and static effects. This one is from the Tax Foundation. The real difference is, remember that first slide we walked through where we talked about if we doubled the child care tax credit? Hey, here is our cost, and here is what it actually does. If we dynamically score it or if we actually static score it, oddly enough, it comes out almost identical because there is none of that macroeconomic change. But if you actually dynamically score it, you will see they actually have tremendously that same spending if it were in corporate tax cuts. It has very different economic scores. We have another slide. We will show on the one down at the end that, at the end of 10 years, we actually make revenue. The revenue line goes beyond its costs. In the 10 years, the first option does not expand. At the end of 10 years, it is actually scored as a loss. That static score is actually accurate. There are a number of these sort of examples out there. I am going to actually go back. This is not being mean. Remember, we are operating under a principle that the dynamic scoring is as much about the money as, hey, we think we are going to have this much tax revenue or this much tax loss at the end of 10 years or the end of the year, but it is also helping us rank. These are important. From 2003 to 2008, we had a tax change, often referred to as the Bush tax cuts, that was going to be $317 billion over 10 years. If you looked at the models that were generated back there, it was supposed to actually cost society, cost the government money. But when we actually got to the end of that time, the end of the phaseout, it actually produced $77 billion more than that tax cut actually cost. That is just in our recent memory, but I have a number of charts here that actually show over and over and over that, if the tax cut is actually put in the right place, we get economic growth and, therefore, additional revenue from it. There are certain things out there that do not pay for themselves. That is why we have this whole discussion of how you find balance if you are working for fairness, if you are working for simplicity, but knowing we must have that economic growth if we are going to keep our promises here. This is just one more example. When you actually see something like this, this first one is as if we were actually to change depreciation tables, that function. It ends up taking about $308 billion out of GDP if we dynamically score it. Each one of these tax policies costs $32 billion. That is actually the idea. This costs $32 billion to the taxpayers. So, if I came right now and said we need to raise $32 billion and we intend to do it in a change in the Tax Code, and then we go out there and say, all right, let's change depreciation tables to business and we take in $32 billion of additional money, what did we just do to the economy? In a static score, it says, hey, you just got $32 billion. If you do a dynamic revenue estimate, which actually does have some macro effects in there, we actually just lost $38 billion, because business slowed down. But if you do the dynamic scoring of what it does over 10 years to the economy, that $32 billion of hopeful tax revenue actually shrunk the U.S. economy by over $300 billion. When they build this model, they are using data going back to the 1950s. But we have an example on the other side. If you go to the far side, what if you were to disallow half of State and local taxes as a deduction? It turns out you would say that we are getting $32 billion because that is what it is written at. You end up bringing in about $29 billion, but you only shrink the economy by $19 billion. Policywise, staticwise, they both say $32 billion in new taxes, but they both have dramatically different effects on the economy. When we actually talk about the dynamic scoring, it is both actually on the tax-raising side as much as the tax-cutting side. The same sort of concept here, but what if we did it going the other direction? Actually, the same slide we just did, what does that mean in the percentage of GDP, if anyone is sort of thinking in that fashion. The first one, where we actually changed the depreciation tables, we took away of the ability of businesses--particularly, smaller business--to depreciate. It ends up shrinking the U.S. economy almost two points over those 10 years. State and local taxes are actually less than, I think, 0.16 of a percent of GDP over those 10 years. So when you actually hear the phrase ``tax cuts don't pay for themselves,'' or, ``you don't get the revenues expected,'' that is actually true, except for properly designed and properly targeted. This is actually the flip side of what we just did. Remember, we just did two boards that showed both the revenues and the actual percent of GDP we raise taxes. How about now if we do sort of the exact same thing but we do it as a tax cut? Once again, you are going to actually see--and I am sorry, I put additional notes to make it understandable--that not all tax cuts are the same. In this case, I am going from one end to the other side. So let's say we go to the full end and we did full expensing. So instead of a depreciation table where, over the 7 years, it is this piece of equipment, or 10 years, whatever it may be, what if you could take the value of that almost immediately? In a dynamic model, it is adding a couple hundred billion dollars to the size of the economy. But if those same dollars, the same amount was spent on, let's say, over here, we cut the bottom tax rate, that might be the appropriate thing to do for societal fairness. But we have to be cognizant, when we are calculating, what that means in GDP growth. You can see the blue here in the end, and the blue here is positive, but barely. That is over 10 years. This makes it hard because, so often, the very tax policies that are good for us in our reelections may not actually be best for what is good for society and its opportunity for jobs and economic growth. This is now sort of the exact same slide, but in the percentages and sort of understanding, when we doubled the child care tax credit or we lowered the individual brackets, maybe doubling the child care tax credit actually has an effect on birthrates. That would be terrific for society, and particularly for the future of our ability to pay into our entitlements, but if you are looking for GDP expansion and economic growth, it is marginal. The expensing or the corporate tax cuts, when you see those on there, you actually see we have substantially more of what they call capital stock. That is the money that is used to buy new equipment to get more productive, to hire more people, to raise their salaries, and for all of us to have more opportunity. I think we are going to make this our last one. This is the easiest one to sort of get our heads around, and it is the crispest of all. Say you are a fellow Member of Congress and I come to you and say we have $70 billion, over 10 years, that we can plug into on the Tax Code, we have that much capacity. Where do we put it that is best for our society? The initial instinct is to have that discussion of, well, what if we were to cut the bottom Federal tax rate? It is wonderful for our hardworking brothers and sisters who are at the lowest tier of income. It would be wonderfully fair. How about if we put that into expanding the child care tax credit, expanding that? How about if you put that money into expensing? If you get in front of an audience and we did an audience vote, what do you think we would get? The fact of the matter is, when you look at the models, what we have learned from the dynamic scoring, some may get almost no economic expansion. We may get economic fairness, which is a laudable goal. But, ultimately, over the next decade, I need my brothers and sisters in this country to have more job opportunities, more ability to be employed, putting that money into expensing so we get more productive as a society in buying new plants and equipment and machinery to make us more productive so we can pay people more, so we have the ability to save for education, for their retirements. That actually has over 5 percent additional expansion of the size of our economy. These are the types of issues that those of us on the Ways and Means Committee have been struggling with over the last year and are going to struggle over the next month as we try to find that balance of what is simplicity, what is fairness, but also what maximizes economic growth. Just as a couple of little last pieces here to sort of understand this. I am begging for those of us who are going to be in this sort of battle, debate, that we do our best to sort of be intellectually honest about what we are talking about. A good example is the number of dollars we are talking about right now in rewriting the Tax Code is, I think, 1 percent or so of GDP, maybe less than that. The stimulus from several years ago was 7 percent of GDP. We have had some folks who are criticizing this over here and saying you intend to dynamically score that, but were almost giddy about spending and scoring actual spending over here that we learned later did not allocate well. There is a concept, if I had a dollar, where would it be spent best to grow society, if I gave it to you as an individual, as a businessperson or an entrepreneur, saying: Where would you put that? Would you try and take that dollar and do something with it that grows the economy? Or we have the other side over here. When government spends it, we have this bad habit of spending money on things that are often politically driven and that don't necessarily have the same type of economic expansionary effects. It is this thing called price theory, where money gets allocated into society. Who is better at allocating that dollar? I will make you an argument that individuals in the market actually have a long history of doing it much healthier, much better. As we finish what we will call Dynamic Scoring 101, what did we learn? The scores are incredibly important in making decisions about how you allocate resources, both on raising taxes, lowering taxes. Where does it have the most impact? Where does it do the most damage? Where does it do the most good? Dynamic scoring is actually a ranking mechanism, because the ultimate number, we are never going to have enough information to be perfect, but all we can do is take the information we have today and try to find a way to say, with today's information, this use of these resources creates this much more opportunity in our society than spending the same dollars over here. So when we are going to get into this debate about what the dynamic scoring is providing those of us who are making the policy, understand, it is sometimes more of choosing A over C, because A produces more expansion in our society, more opportunity, even though they cost the same, than sometimes looking at the dollar amounts. Often, as we saw on some of these boards here, the dollar amounts, if we statically score it, are the same. They just have different effects. This is really, really important. So think of dynamic scoring as just that: it is the scorekeeping of how we all do this. For everyone that is actually interested in this, I will strongly encourage you to go to the Joint Committee on Taxation's website. I believe they actually have a tab there that actually geeks out a little bit on what dynamic score is, particularly if you are an accounting or quant major. You will love this stuff. Also, the Tax Foundation, which is nonpartisan. We have actually borrowed lots of information from them. They actually have some really great examples of, when we, over the years, have made certain types of policy decisions, what has been good for society and where we have actually missed and not gotten near the numbers that we have promised. Do understand that, when we take a look at what we did in 2003, the U.S. economy ended up being 4.6 percent larger by 2006. So, from 2003 to 2006, we actually were 4.6 percent larger--I know these are a little bit geeky--than the models back then provided for. It is not that the models were bad and evil. They just didn't have all the data. But they still provided an opportunity for the policymakers, back in 2003, to actually make their decisions. So I hope--actually, if anyone actually found this interesting, please write and tell us. If you are now bored out of your mind and we helped you sleep, please let us know. But the reality of it is, what is about to happen in the debate over tax reform is going to have a lot of really technical, really complicated debating points in it. As I learned yesterday, when we were rolling out some of the math, some of our brothers and sisters who desperately do not want us to have a win decided that zero was a tax hike. I just beg of everyone for at least on this issue, if we can sort of pull our partisan rage away and just sort of focus on the working population of our society and how we help and also how do we help for the future so my 2-year-old daughter, so your children, so my family that may be heading towards retirement, everyone has a fair chance. And that fair chance can only happen if we really start to grow this economy and start to grow it fairly dramatically. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to acknowledge Brock Lively who served as an intern in my office from May 16 to July 29, 2016. I recently learned of Brock's interest to explore military service after graduating from Loyola University in May 2018 with honors in history. I speak to Brock's character with enthusiasm for his commitment to service. In addition to accomplishing the leadership of an Eagle Scout, Brock has given of himself on many faith-based and humanitarian missions around the globe. He carried my appreciation for the time he takes to give back to his community and country.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of the graduating class of the 2017 Dodie Londen Excellence in Public Service Series. Brandy Wells, Cindy Casaus, Debi Vandenboom, Farhana Ahmed, Jeni White, Kristen Desmangles, Lauren Pemberton, Lisa Godzich, Dr. Shadow Asgari, Simone Hall, ViciLee Jacobs, Bernadette Coggins and Yvonne Cahill have all distinguished themselves as impactful leaders in our community.