David Schweikert: “Let me take a quick moment and sort of get adjusted here. We are going to spend a couple of minutes walking through some…”

“Let me take a quick moment and sort of get adjusted here. We are going to spend a couple of minutes walking through some things that I think are exciting, hopeful, and worth getting our heads around. Every week, I try to come to this microphone when we are here to talk about what I believe makes the future really bright for all of us, everyone from my 3-year-old--or 3\1/2\-year-old, as she corrects me-- little girl to someone who is moving into their retirement years. Once again, what is the greatest fragility in our society? This is one that is hard for us to get our heads around or even talk about. It is our demographics. Whether we like it or not, baby boomers are retiring, and we have 74 million baby boomers. The last baby boomer will hit 65 in about 8\1/2\ years. In 8\1/2\ years, two workers, one retiree. In 8\1/2\ years, 50 percent of our spending from this body, less interest, will be to those 65 and up. It is demographics. It is not Republican or Democrat. It is demographics. At the same time, we have a substantial collapse, fall, in our birthrates. As you know, our birthrates now are well below the replacement rates. What do you do as a society? What do you do as a government? What do we do as a body here that is making public policy to make the future bright? We keep coming to the floor and talking about that we believe there are, functionally, five elements. It is the adoption of technology.…”