David Schweikert

We are going to get to that in a second, because you have to understand how much the deficit has gone up this year. We have a slide somewhere here that is going to tell us that. May I ask the Speaker how much time I have remaining? The…

You no longer can say 20 years or a couple of decades. It is 14 years now. I am the proud father of an infant. If you do the calculations, when she reaches her peak earning years, her tax rates will be double what I pay. And that is…

In some ways, it is actually more complicated, which I wasn't going to go there, but let's do it for the fun of it. The Social Security revenues will be subject to the whims of the economy. So you might have 1 month where you are able to…

I think it is zero. And I have actually had this experience and I think Mr. Perry, my friend from Pennsylvania, had this experience where we have held budget townhalls and we have held well over a hundred in our district over the last…

Yeah. I am not going there. Sorry to the Speaker. We don't mean to be teasing you. Well, actually, we do. We are just afraid of it. But this is really important. So if there is someone out there, whether you are on the right or the left…

So we are actually paying ourselves a SPIF, and we are still burning through our cash. That is why this board is up, to show you how devastatingly different the number is from just this last August, how fast the numbers have moved. But…

No. No. Technically, we are paying ourselves. So that is part of the revenue into Social Security right now and the Medicare trust fund and all the three big trust funds. We are paying ourselves 3.1 percent, which is actually greater than…

We were talking about earlier that my calculations are that, as of right now today, it is a little under $2.8 trillion of special Treasury notes that have been given from the Treasury to the Social Security trust fund because that cash has…

Actually, General Perry and I were talking about that. You don't mind me calling you that, do you?

So now let's talk about the other trust fund that was in the Congressional Budget Office report, something we shored up this last fall. You remember how we did it? We reached over and grabbed $114 billion out of Social Security, old-age…

Look at this. If you plan to be around 9 years from now, Medicare part A, what covers your hospital, those types of section in Medicare, it is gone. The trust fund is gone. So all of a sudden now are we willing to do what Speaker Ryan has…

You will be happy to know that my math is Social Security will have been emptied out 2 years before you retire. I mean, it is 14 years from now. So these are just critical. I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina.

How do you and I and Mr. Perry help the public understand these numbers in the background are driving much of our policy here, much of the fussing here, but yet it is not part of the Presidential campaign, and this is no longer about your…

It is a combination of economy, growth rate, reaching over and taking $114 billion out to shore up Social Security disability, and our recalculation of what future GDP is. Just for the fun of it, can I talk my friend from South Carolina…

Right. Right now. My calculations are we shortened the life of Social Security's trust fund by about 13 months when we did that. I don't think you voted for it. I don't think I did. I know I didn't. Now we have to deal with the realities…

In 2011, this was the chart. I just want you to look. What is the direction? The trust fund was supposed to grow and grow and grow up until 2021. There was going to be more money there every year. This is what we were telling ourselves…

You are incredibly fit. Understand, I am going to show you some slides under the new projections by the CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, that came out 3 weeks ago. {time} 1845 Mr. Speaker, Social Security, the trust fund has about 14…

Yes. There are a number of times you and I have folks who come to our offices or to our townhalls who have great ideas, and they desperately want some more resources for this research project or for this activity or for this infrastructure…

Yes. Look, this isn't a sinister plot. I can remember, back in 1981 or in 1982, sitting in a statistics class, and the professor at that time was actually showing how much money had to be set aside because the baby boomers eventually were…

We could actually break down all of the programs, but this is already a little geeky as it is because we are going to be talking about numbers that are in the billions and trillions, and people's eyes glaze over when you talk about that…

No, I haven't. I may let you do that. Let me just pitch what this one means. In 2011, when I first got here and I started this project in our office, we actually set up a little team in our office we call the ideas shop. We actually grind…

As we do this, we probably should make the distinction between an earned benefit and an entitlement and those, but, for right now, we are going to somewhat refer to them as ``mandatory spending.''

You and I have both had this experience because we talked about it earlier. You get asked at our townhalls and at other gatherings: Why do you fight with each other? It is like other families--it is about the money. When I stand here and…

When you see something that says OASI, that means ``Old Age, Survivors Insurance.'' That is Social Security. That is Social Security. DI, think of it is as Social Security disability. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

And then you try to have the conversation with our friends from the left saying: You don't think the regulatory state affects us? You don't think raising taxes has slowed down the economy? There is some actual great literature--and we are…