David Schweikert
Vice Chairman of the Joint Economic CommitteeRepresentative of Arizona's First Congressional District
The U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee plays a pivotal role each year in responding to the Economic Report of the President. The Biden Administration’s policy choices outlined in the Report have obstructed economic growth, exacerbated inflation, and driven up interest costs on the debt, exacerbating the nation’s debt crisis.
The Republican section of the 2024 Joint Economic Report delivers its findings and recommendations in five chapters:
Chapter 1 (“Failures in Economic Policy”) reviews the nation’s fiscal problems and dissects the Biden Administration’s policy choices over the past year, which have propelled deficit growth and caused inflation to persist well past its peak in 2022. The FY2023 deficit was $1.7 trillion—the third highest on record—despite COVID-19 being in the rearview mirror. [...] Deficit growth can largely be attributed to rising interest costs on the debt as the Federal Reserve continues to hold interest rates steady between 5.25 and 5.50 percent—the highest in two decades—because of the difficulty in taming inflation.
Chapter 2 (“Demographics and the Deficit”) explores the rapidly changing demographics of the United States as more Americans retire and begin receiving Social Security and Medicare benefits. [...] This Chapter aims to address the trust fund depletion by encouraging policies that address demographic trends, like removing barriers to family formation, rejuvenating prime-age labor force participation, and attracting high-skilled immigration to increase economic growth and put our retirement programs on a sustainable fiscal path.
Chapter 3 (“Tax Increases Harm Growth”) explains that President Biden’s tax proposals would be detrimental to the U.S. economy and constitute a harmful strategy for balancing the long-run Federal budget. The President has repeatedly targeted wealthy individuals and corporations to raise revenue to solve the nation’s pressing fiscal problems. This Chapter presents compelling arguments against the Left’s “tax the rich” approach by proving that such large tax increases would severely hamper economic growth and exacerbate America’s fiscal crisis while raising only a fraction of the tax receipts necessary.
Chapter 4 (“Reaching Fiscal Solutions Through Healthcare Innovation”) builds off our findings in the 2023 Response. [...] After updating our projections, we now estimate that obesity will result in $8.2 to $9.1 trillion in excess medical expenditures over the next ten years. I have long argued one of the most moral things we can do as a society is to curb obesity through healthcare innovation. By making our fellow Americans healthier, we can vastly improve their quality of life, and, in turn, help solve the nation’s fiscal challenges so that future generations are not left behind.
Chapter 5 (“The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Governance”) analyzes the potential benefits to governance, economic growth, and our fiscal situation that one of the most revolutionary technological innovations of our generation, artificial intelligence (AI), can have. [...] The potential for both faster, sustained economic growth and a reduction in outlays will help stabilize the debt-to-GDP ratio and dramatically improve the nation’s fiscal trajectory.
