David Schweikert: “I promise you at least this one. I think I have the half an hour. I am going to try not to use all of it, and I will try…”

“I promise you at least this one. I think I have the half an hour. I am going to try not to use all of it, and I will try to slow down some of the speaking. Madam Speaker, I had a couple of odds and ends and then some basic optimism on one or two things. First off, let's do some cleanup. Last week, I actually walked through a little bit of an economic report. We got a preview of it. I think it will be published fairly soon. It is 'Measuring What Matters,' and the title is: 'Why Italy May Be in Better Fiscal Shape than the U.S.' This is done by some of the super economic geeks out of Boston and Cambridge, but what terrified me because I am actually doing my best to read these sorts of documents is the little sentence I have highlighted here. I tried to point this out last week. This is for supergeeks. If you use a 6 percent discount rate, you need 104 percent of a child's lifetime income who is born next year and this year just to cover the pension and healthcare benefits in our country. You need more than they are ever going to earn in their entire life just to cover those promises. Now, if you take it down to a 2 percent discount rate, which is a way you sort of say that here is where inflation and these things are going to be, you still need a 22 percent increase on their lifetime taxes just to cover pension benefits. This is actually based on some numbers where I think they may have too high a fertility rate.”