{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://schweikert.house.gov/2023/12/07/schweikert-every-dime-that-congress-votes-on-is-borrowed-money/", "Schweikert: Every Dime That Congress Votes on Is Borrowed Money", "2023-12-07", "2023", "2023-12", "Republican", "House", "AZ", "David Schweikert", "S001183", "schweikert.house.gov", "schweikert", "https://schweikert.house.gov/category/congress_press_release/", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2014 U.S. Representative David Schweikert (AZ-01) delivered a speech on the House Floor today to hammer home the fact that gross interest will climb above $1 trillion this fiscal year, making interest the second largest expense in all of government. Rep. Schweikert also explained that the Social Security trust fund runs out of money in nine years, setting in an automatic 25% cut in retirement benefits and risking the doubling of senior poverty if Congress continues down an unsustainable fiscal path.\n\nExcerpts from Rep. Schweikert\u2019s floor speech can be found below:\n\nClick here or on the image above to view Rep. Schweikert\u2019s remarks.\n\nOn the Social Security trust fund running out in nine budget years:\n\n[Beginning at 3:52 mark]\n\n\u201cThis fiscal year, the number one spend will be Social Security. Now, let\u2019s talk about this for a moment. Social Security is its own trust fund \u2014 its own funding mechanism. None of the money is spent in the general fund. It\u2019s loaned to the general fund, and Social Security gets the special Treasury notes, and then they\u2019re paid interest twice a year. If you ever geek out, and you\u2019re someone that watches U.S. debt, and all of a sudden there\u2019s this sudden spike, often that\u2019s actually because we made our twice-a-year interest payments to Social Security \u2014 but it\u2019s separate. But you\u2019ve also got to understand the flip side of that. In nine years, when the Social Security trust fund is empty, it doesn\u2019t have a claim on the general fund either. [\u2026] CBO says a 25% cut in your check is coming in nine years. The average couple in America on Social Security [will take a] $17,400 cut. We will double poverty of the senior population in America. It\u2019s immoral, and the solution we get is just raise these taxes, do the cap. [\u2026] Right now, it looks like raising the cap on Social Security, doing these other mechanisms, still does not close that $616 billion shortfall. That\u2019s the very first year the Social Security trust fund is gone. Why [isn\u2019t this] talked about constantly here? When defense is like $830 billion and just the shortfall in a single year for Social Security is over $600 billion, does anyone see the scale we\u2019re talking about?\u201d\n\nOn every dime that Congress votes on is borrowed money:\n\n[Beginning at 9:38 mark]\n\n\u201cThe number of folks who have lived in this sort of mathematical fantasy world \u2014 you see this red here? This is last year\u2019s spend. 73% of the federal government\u2019s spending was on autopilot. We don\u2019t get to vote on it. You get elected to Congress. You do not vote on 73% of all the spending because it\u2019s [formula-based]. You worked your 40 quarters, you get the Social Security [benefits]. You hit a certain age and participate, you get your Medicare [benefits]. You\u2019re part of a certain tribal group, you get this. These are things that it\u2019s [formula-based]. You fall below a certain income, you get these. Defense was 13% of our spending last year. [\u2026] But the fighting that ultimately removed [Speaker McCarthy] is over this little green wedge here. That\u2019s 15%. The punch line you need to just burn into your mind \u2014 all this green is borrowed. All this blue is borrowed, and last year, about $400 billion of the red was borrowed. Everything a member of Congress votes on is borrowed money. Sink that in. Everything we vote on is on borrowed money.\u201d\n\nOn borrowing costs eclipsing $78,000 per second:\n\n[Beginning at 13:09 mark]\n\n\u201cWhat would you guess we\u2019re borrowing per second? I think as of yesterday, we were at $78,480 per second. You can sign up on our website and get this wonderful text message sent to you every day with the actual facts. The number of times I hear people speaking behind these microphones, and you\u2019re pulling out your calculator and going, \u2018Where\u2019d they come up with that?\u2019 They just make things up because these numbers are so difficult. So far this fiscal year, and it will change as tax collections come in, we\u2019re over $112,000 per second in borrowing. And of that $78,000 we\u2019re borrowing right now per second over the last 364 days, $30,000-$35,000 of that now is interest, and it gets worse because lots of the bonds we sold over the last couple of years \u2014 because we\u2019re idiots \u2014 we sold short on the curve. So, we had incredibly low interest rates, and now those bonds are going to have to be refinanced at these higher interest rates.\n\n\u201cThree weeks ago, we had a 30-year bond auction where the broker dealers \u2014 the market makers \u2014 had to take 24% of it. Now, everyone that\u2019s listening, you just went, \u2018huh?\u2019 What happens when there are so few buyers, or there\u2019s so much inventory that has to be sold, that the broker dealers don\u2019t have enough credit line to take it all down? Does that become a failed bond auction? Do we start to see stress in the world bond market? Remember, the entire world uses our bonds as the oil, the liquidity that keeps financial markets working here and around the world, our mortgages, everything else. Intellectually, I don\u2019t think we understand the serious nature of what a chart like this tells you. When you start looking at gross interest just marching along, and then this is functionally the last 12 months. So, you had some of the lower interest rates in the beginning of 2023. Remember, interest rates didn\u2019t really start to move until April of last year. This is showing just in the last 12 months, we functionally added $923 billion in financing costs on those interest rates. This year, it\u2019s going to be over $1 trillion. But then you come over here, and you start even looking at things like net interest. Net interest is ultimately going up. The two lines are meeting. Why? Because the trust funds are getting smaller and smaller because they are shrinking. Remember, the Transportation trust fund is gone in a few years. Medicare Part A, the hospital portion, is gone in seven years. Social Security is gone in nine years. You\u2019ve got to understand that also has an effect on our borrowing because we can\u2019t borrow internally.\u201d\n\nBack to News", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-08T01:14:16Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://schweikert.house.gov/2023/12/07/schweikert-every-dime-that-congress-votes-on-is-borrowed-money/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 4.248982993885875, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}