David Schweikert: “When I first got here, there was sort of a joke that there were two ways to get in trouble around here. One was to say…”

“When I first got here, there was sort of a joke that there were two ways to get in trouble around here. One was to say something stupid, and one was to tell everyone the truth they don't want to hear. I am going to see if I can get myself in trouble tonight. I have come behind this microphone repeatedly over the last few years trying to do the math. If you are one of the people around this campus, because we are probably right now on a thousand televisions around this campus, and you care about the math, please give me a little bit of your time. I have never done a set of presentations that has made my stomach turn more than this. We have spent the last couple of weeks with my Joint Economic Committee economists. I am blessed to be on the Ways and Means Committee. I chair the Oversight Subcommittee. I also am the senior Republican on the Joint Economic Committee, meaning I have some freaky smart people who work for me, and we have been trying to figure out what the math looks like for this Nation a decade from now. Remember, we have lots of people who ran this last election cycle saying we are going to balance the budget in 10 years. Wonderful. Do you understand the math? We sat down and broke apart every document we could find, every projection from CBO, and I care a lot about this. I accept that I am an older dad. My wife and I spent years trying to adopt. We were able to adopt an amazing little girl.…”