NW Valley Times

U.S. Representative David Schweikert (AZ-01) delivered a speech on the House Floor last night, focusing on what he described as flawed estimates provided by the White House. He highlighted that despite the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicting between $390 billion and $851 billion over ten years from additional collections on earners above $400,000, only $1.3 billion has been collected in the first two years.

Schweikert stated, "Does anyone see a math problem?" He emphasized potential cost-savings through innovative technology and discussed that 14.5% of current spending is just interest—interest owed to trust funds, bondholders, and union pension funds. "If gross interest comes in at $1.4 trillion...a little less than half of your income taxes go towards just paying down interest," he noted.

Excerpts from Rep. Schweikert’s floor speech include:

On false promises for additional revenues from governmental agencies:

“One of my great frustrations here is sitting on Ways and Means [and] having the joint economic economists as part of my team, and the number of times this place makes promises that the experts around us say, 'They’re complete fraud.' And then, somehow, magically, we never sort of come back a couple of years later and say, 'Hey, here’s what you were promised when the Democrats did their inflation reduction act. Here [are] the actual outcomes.' Should we hold people to their own language? I’m going to walk through a few boards and try to give some examples of how this place engages in theater that’s mathematically void..."

On enhanced tax enforcement revenues not meeting projections:

“What would happen if annually, the Treasury has to update what the real numbers [are]? How are they doing? Well...it turns out over two years they’ve brought in an extra $1.3 billion...What happened to the $400 billion? Or the $1 trillion?...My point here is this: so often this place builds these promises that are a complete fraud."

On pushing creative cures to market:

“In the last six years, 390,000 of our brothers and sisters have died of fentanyl...In my county...there may be two or three dead people every single day from fentanyl...Take a little bit of that money and help bring it to market. Save people’s lives!"

Rep. Schweikert also criticized student loan forgiveness policies: "What if I came to you and said…the student loan forgiveness…750,000 individuals who make over $312,000…every dime of this is borrowed money? You’re going to take working-class people…to subsidize?! This is the morality of this place.”

Congressman David Schweikert serves on the House Ways and Means Committee and is Chairman of its Oversight Subcommittee. He is Vice Chairman on the bicameral Joint Economic Committee and chairs several caucuses including those focused on Valley Fever Task Force, Blockchain Caucus, Telehealth Caucus, Singapore Caucus, and Access to Capital and Credit.