Congress can no longer afford to ignore the nation’s debt dependency. There are three areas where we believe we can begin to put the U.S. on firmer financial footing.
What you’re about to read may seem unfathomable, but it is true. The United States government has borrowed nearly $90,000 a second for the entire year.
What this adds up to is the federal government borrowing anywhere between $2.2 trillion and $2.5 trillion this year while pushing the national debt to $35 trillion.
As vice chairman of the Joint Economic Committee (JEC), it’s my moral obligation to tell the truth about the math and help the American public understand the scale of policy decisions ahead of us.
Each year, the JEC is obligated to respond to the Council of Economic Advisers’ Economic Report of the President. We have chosen to focus this year’s Joint Economic Report on examining the U.S. fiscal situation while proposing a framework for workable solutions that will ensure the nation’s future financial stability and prosperity.
It’s tempting to place the blame for our current situation solely on President Biden. And there’s no question that Biden’s economic record speaks for itself. In the last three and a half years, we have seen record-breaking government spending, an exploding national debt and inflation unlike anything we have seen in over 40 years. Americans have suffered financially under the Biden administration, and his record on the economy can best be summed up with one word: failure.
But there is plenty of blame to go around. The federal government has been on a perilous fiscal path for far longer than the last three and a half years. We have been borrowing too much and spending too much for decades. The inability to get our fiscal house in order and implement even a semblance of fiscal restraint has led us to where we are today.
The question that really needs to be answered is — what do we do about it?
Do we continue to bury our heads in the sand and continue the reckless spending and borrowing policies?
Or do we begin the difficult task of implementing workable solutions that will ensure that our children, grandchildren and future generations have the same economic opportunities we have all been blessed with as Americans?
Here are three areas where we believe we can begin to put the U.S. on firmer financial footing.
The first is the nation’s declining fertility rate, which has coincided with a decline in prime-age workers. Together, these have contributed to a diminished working population. Why does this matter? Because a smaller working population inevitably leads to slower long-term economic growth and fewer options to finance mandatory spending programs financed by payroll taxes.
To reverse these trends, Congress should focus on creating policies to improve demographic outcomes. We need to focus on removing barriers to family formation and reconnecting prime-age individuals to the American workforce.
The second area our report focuses on is the problem of obesity. Our report reveals the hard truth that obesity — a key driver of health care spending — will cost Americans up to $9.1 trillion over the next decade. We estimate that the impact of obesity on the economy will be even larger than we projected last year due primarily to explosions in obesity rates.
Even the most conservative projections forecast that more than half of the U.S. adult population will be obese by 2032. Ultimately, we estimate that the economy will lose between $10.9 trillion to $11.9 trillion in GDP due to labor supply reductions over the next 10 years.
I have long argued one of the most moral things we can do as a society is to curb obesity through health care innovation. We believe that by focusing on making Americans healthier, we can vastly improve their quality of life and help solve the nation’s fiscal challenges.
Finally, our report explains how artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to vastly grow the economy and make government more efficient. AI represents one of the most revolutionary technological innovations of our generation. It is imperative that Congress ensure that overregulation does not inhibit investment and innovation in the AI arena. If we are able to do this, we believe that AI innovation could help stabilize the debt-to-GDP ratio and reshape the nation’s fiscal trajectory.
Congress can no longer afford to ignore the nation’s debt dependency. If we do, we will end up in a situation where the federal government will become subject to the whims of the bond markets. And no one, Republican or Democrat, wants that to happen.
There is hope. American innovation and ingenuity can help us navigate the fiscal headwinds to deliver a brighter, more prosperous future for generations to come.
David Schweikert represents Arizona’s 1st District and is vice chairman of the Joint Economic Committee.
