{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://schweikert.house.gov/2024/06/28/schweikert-unpacks-the-republican-response-to-the-economic-report-of-the-president/", "Schweikert Unpacks the Republican Response to the Economic Report of the President", "2024-06-28", "2024", "2024-06", "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 this week that expanded on the newly-released Republican Response to the 2024 Economic Report of the President. The report found alarming, but not surprising statistics that display the potential devastating effects to the U.S. economy. Aspects of the President\u2019s budget that our Joint Economic Committee analyzed found that deficit growth, rapidly changing demographics, the flawed \u201ctax the rich\u201d solution, and the increasing obesity prevalence in America have contributed severely to America\u2019s fiscal crisis. The report concludes by exploring potential policy solutions that capitalize on the benefits of artificial intelligence and how innovation implementation is actively reducing government bureaucracy.\n\nExcerpts from Rep. Schweikert\u2019s floor speech can be found below:\n\nOn income tax receipts contributing vastly to covering interest and Medicare costs:\n\n[Beginning at 17:12]\n\n\u201cBasically, the point is everything you think of as government is borrowed. When I would talk about that a few years ago, I would have members here saying, \u201cDavid, you got to stop making up stuff. You\u2019re scaring my voters!\u201d Tada! it happened, it\u2019s real. This chart is a little tougher, but I\u2019m trying to point out majority of income tax. If you actually take every dime in income tax, and you add it up, this year, 36.9% of all income tax will go to just cover Medicare. Then, you add in another 36.5% that is net interest. If you\u2019re honest, it\u2019s gross interest, which is closer to 40%. Think about that: [in] this year, almost all the income tax is consumed by interest and Medicare. When we go out in time, it starts being beyond. You start having 43.1%. In nine budget years, all income tax will go to Medicare. Another 42.3% will just go to interest. If you plug in all net interest, [it will be] closer to 45%, meaning, in nine years, all income tax\u2014 which, remember, we are an income-tax based tax system\u2014 the majority of U.S. receipts come from income tax. We can\u2019t cover our interest and Medicare. We actually cross this threshold in [around] five years. Every dime of tax you pay will be just covering Medicare and covering interest.\u201d\n\nOn promoting talent-based immigration:\n\n[Beginning at 27:00]\n\n\u201cWe have actually found the economic baselines that say you can grow by hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars the size of the economy\u2014 just keep the people who have talent. My argument is talent could be a skilled carpenter or a synthetic biologist. If you are going to grow a society at the same time the number of children\u2014 remember, we are closing schools all over this country, except we don\u2019t like to talk about it because we don\u2019t have enough children\u2013 maybe actually keeping those who pay taxes, grow the economy, make your life better, and maybe make you healthier. We should fix our immigration system. You lock down the border, you don\u2019t import poverty. This is a non sequitur, but let\u2019s do it: the immorality of the open border, the cruelty. [Let\u2019s say] you are the family that your mom and dad didn\u2019t graduate high school. You basically sell your talent. You sell your willingness to work. You hang dry wall. What happens when tomorrow I add four, five, six, seven million people with similar skill sets? What happened to your income? The data is showing that what the president did on the border has made poor people poorer. We are working on a paper right now to also show when you add several million people with a limited housing stock\u2014 particularly the least expensive types of housing\u2014 much of the reason that inflation and that pricing went up [is because of] border policy. You want to understand why you can\u2019t afford an apartment and you are working your heart out? Border policy. Its economics. It\u2019s just math.\u201d\n\nOn acknowledging obesity remains as our top health care spend:\n\n[Beginning at 30:05]\n\n\u201cThe side car is we\u2019ve known for decades that 5% of our brothers and sisters who have multiple chronic conditions are over half of our health care spending. The data set for this 5% [shows] the majority are obese. Help them, don\u2019t mock them. Don\u2019t shame them. Help them! The morality of having a society when you\u2019re having your fifth year of prime age males dying, [many claim] \u201cOh, it\u2019s drugs.\u201d No, turns out drugs is way up there. Just above drugs is actually obesity. I would argue this place is absolutely immoral because of its unwillingness to tell the truth. If I come to you and say the Joint Economic Report spent years putting together the data and refining the data to demonstrate that the excess health care costs of obesity to this country the next ten years is $ 9.1 trillion. Why isn\u2019t this an alarm bell? We\u2019ve gotten some nice editorials saying, \u201cHey, it\u2019s neat that Mr. Schweikert is willing to tell the truth about where the real driver of debt and deficits are, and things we can actually fix.\u201d The brain trust around here saying, \u201cOh, let\u2019s just raise taxes! Let\u2019s just cut things!\u201d It doesn\u2019t get you even close. Change policy. Oh, but changing policy would require thinking and we\u2019d have rooms full of lobbyists who don\u2019t want us to change their business models. We\u2019ll have bureaucracies that will have to think differently. Well I\u2019m going to show you that you can replace most of the bureaucracies with AI, which is another thing we need to do.\u201c\n\nThe full 2024 Republican Response can be found here.\n\nA one pager can be found here.\n\n###\n\nCongressman David Schweikert serves on the House Ways and Means Committee and is the current Chairman of the Oversight Subcommittee. He is also the Vice Chairman on the bicameral Joint Economic Committee, chairs the Congressional Valley Fever Task Force, and is the Republican Co-Chair of the Blockchain Caucus, Telehealth Caucus, Singapore Caucus, and the Caucus on Access to Capital and Credit.\n\nBack to News", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-07T21:11:47Z"]], "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/2024/06/28/schweikert-unpacks-the-republican-response-to-the-economic-report-of-the-president/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.294694073498249, "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"}