East Arizona News

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Last night, U.S. Representative David Schweikert (AZ-01) delivered a speech on the House Floor to explain how Congressional Democrats’ tax proposals fall well short of achieving a balanced federal budget over the next decade. Rep. Schweikert also discussed the alarming scale of borrowing that the federal government has accumulated over the past 12 months and the wake-up call that must happen for Congress to get its unsustainable spending habits under control.

Excerpts from Rep. Schweikert’s floor speech can be found below: 

https://mcusercontent.com/11ec7911c5700f1dae677b3fb/images/885b24f5-b8a1-23cc-3ce7-eaa0e36bd988.png

Click here or on the image above to view Rep. Schweikert’s remarks.

On the Left’s promise not to raise taxes on families making less than $400,000:

[Beginning at 30:00 mark]

“So, our brothers and sisters on the Left and [President Biden] have said that people who make $400,000 and below will not be touched. Okay. $400,000 and up is 2% of the population. Most of them live in Democrat districts. So, maybe as Republicans we should stop caring. They live on the coasts. Most of that population lives in Democrat districts. Fine, it’s your voters. But it’s only 2% of the population. Do you actually believe when we’re projected to have a $2.5 trillion a year borrowing at the end of the 10-year window? In nine budget years from now, the annual borrowing will be over $2.5 trillion a year, and that’s CBO’s number from last week, and I think it underestimates interest costs. You’re going to finance that on 2% of the population? Let’s walk through why that mathematically doesn’t work. What’s fascinating is upper income, you start to look here, take the populations that are $100,000 and up. They pay the vast majority of income tax. They have very high percentages of the share of income until you get to the really wealthy. This blue line here, that’s the percentage of total income and this is the amount of taxes they are paying. If you make $1 million, the percentage of the total federal income tax [you] pay compared to others is 2.5 times more.”

On the actual cost of the Orwellian-named Inflation Reduction Act:

[Beginning at 33:09 mark]

“Do you remember when we were getting the Inflation Reduction Act, which was a completely Orwellian name for something that actually boosted inflation. But remember, we were first told, it’s going to be maybe $280 billion of handouts to big green energy, for energy companies that do the things we want. Then, we saw Goldman Sachs say it could be as high as $1.2 trillion. This one actually has the latest data at about $659 billion. So you want to understand why inflation is continuing? Why there are factories being built that are going to be empty? It’s the ultimate Keynesian economics without actual demand on the other side. So, build the factory but don’t build the mechanisms to actually have supply. This is what happens with the arrogance of us who sit in this Body thinking we can manage the economy.”

On the Left’s plans to dismantle provisions in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act:

[Beginning at 34:27 mark]

“Let’s repeal all of the 2017 tax cuts, including also what we did for low-income folks — the doubling of deductions and those things. Remember, 10 years from now we are borrowing about $2.5 trillion a year. Over the whole 10 years, we get about $455 billion in. So next time you have a Democrat behind the microphone going, ‘It’s the tax reform!’ Okay, so just repeal it, and when you take away the wage growth effects, look at the number. You get $455 billion of receipts over an entire 10 years.”

On how even taxing 100% of all income over $500,000 wouldn’t come close to balancing the budget:

[Beginning at 40:12 mark]

“‘Taxing 100% of all income over $500,000 would balance the budget over the decade.’ No! And I can show you a dozen members who’ve said those things behind the microphones. ‘We just need to take those rich people that make $500,000 and up, and just tax everything additional!’ It would raise about 5.1% of the economy, assuming you don’t slow the economy down. So remember, these are static scores. These are not dynamic. So you take everyone that makes over $500,000. Fine. Take every dime of income and then pretend the economy does not crash on you, doesn’t slow down. The economy stays the same. You get about 5.1% of the economy in taxes. You’re borrowing 7.5%. You closed a bunch of the gap. It’s also fantasy that you didn’t just blow up the economy.”

On the futility of raising federal corporate income taxes to 35%:

[Beginning at 41:13 mark]

“‘Raise corporate income tax from 21% to 35%.’ Okay. You get $1.39 trillion over 10 years. So you get about another $130 billion a year. Did I mention we borrowed $2 trillion in the last 12 months? But you could go to a 35% corporate income tax, make us not competitive in the world, and remember corporate income taxes are just passed on to you as the consumer but it makes us feel better.”

Original source can be found here.