Transcripts For CSPAN LIVE 20240706

Cspan is your unfiltered view of government. Were funded by these Television Companies and more. Including comcast. Oh, you think this is just a Community Center . No. Its way more than that. Comcast is partnering with 1,000 Community Centers to create wifienabled areas to students from lowincome families can have the tools they need to be ready for anything. Comcast suppos cspan as a public service, along with these other television pviders. Giving you a front row seat to democracy. Back to join us to tk about issues of debt is maya macguineas, president of the committee for a responsible federal budget. With 10 days left to the supposed deck state, where are you as a result of this issue, if any, will come . Guest i feel confident we are going to resolve this. I have a pit in my stomach. It is the fact we are getting close to the deadline, much closer than we ever should have been. While the drama seems part of what is expected in a negotiation on both sides, they need to prove they are pushing everything. There could be an inadvertent fault. There could be a scenario we do not get to an agreement and we default. These things should be inconceivable. I do not think they are likely. I am worried and i would like to pass the debt ceiling as quickly as possible. I wish we had passed it months ago. Host the argument from republicans is, in order to pass it, we need to see spending cuts. Is that the best argument . Caller the debt ceiling has many times in the past been used as a vehicle where savings were part of that. It was particularly used in the 1980s and 1990s were there were things like Simpson Bowles commission, spending caps, actual packages of savings, lots of things had been attached to the debt ceiling but the debt ceiling has been attached to them. Where we have generated savings at the same time we increased the debt ceiling. That is a reasonable policy. Two things have changed. Over the past decade, there have been more people that talk about contemplating default. In the past when we did it, we knew all sides new, everyone in negotiations and we had to live the debt ceiling and there should not be escutcheon about default. It was a much calmer negotiation that got us fiscal improvements. That has gotten less true and it concerns me there are some people who seem to think defaulting would be an acceptable answer if they do not get what they want. It is not. The other thing leading to the fact i think the debt ceiling has now outlived its usefulness, it was very helpful in the past but has become too dramatic. Under President Trump, the debt ceiling was lifted three times. The talk was how it was a clean debt ceiling increase. It was not. When President Trump increased the debt ceiling, he signed legislation that attached new, higher levels of borrowing. In recent years, we have set seen the debt ceiling used to make the debt worse. The former president said recently they should contemplate befalling if they do not get the spending caps they wanted. That was one of the most reckless things i could imagine a leader saying. It does not line up with the fact he did sign into law policies that made the debt worse when he was increasing the debt ceiling. It has been a tool that has been used for this school improvements. It has become a tool now that is too much a part of dangerous showdown. Where should we negotiate the savings we desperately need because of our fiscal situation . It is not ideal. We should negotiate this on the budget process. We do not budget in this country anymore. It has been 20 years since congress has passed a budget on time. This year, neither Budget Committee has come out with their budgets yet and leadership from the parties healthy Budget Committees do not put out budgets. Where we should be doing this, the senate has not been in this discussion. No budget, no plan, they have not engaged and this is the most important discussion going on. We do not budget in a way where we step back, look at the Fiscal Health of the country, need to make changes, and figure out what our priorities are and how we are going to pay for them. That is when this discussion should happen. The debt ceiling is the place where it can force a discussion and it is a discussion that needs to happen. Once we get through this, it is time for us to reform the debt ceiling and our budget process so we do this anymore thoughtful, strategic way and we can actually have a fiscal policy that makes sense for the priorities of the country and is more fiscally responsible been now. Guest does that eliminate the debt ceiling . Host does that make someone else in charge of the debt ceiling other than congress, the president , where does that lie . Guest it does not eliminate the debt ceiling unless you replace it with something. We do not have any vehicle that forces the discussion of, are we borrowing too much . We are borrowing too much, it is not a close call. We have been in five years, hitting the debt to gdp is the record it has ever been in this country, larger than it was after world war ii. We had just fought a world war and the debt came down quickly. We are on track to borrow another 22 trillion over the next 10 years if we do nothing. We spend more on Interest Payments then programs for children. In the next five years, we will spend more on Interest Payments then defense. It is important we think about these fiscal situations. You cannot get rid of the debt ceiling without putting in place something else. When idea, maybe if the one idea, if the debt ceiling had to be lifted at the same time you were voting on legislation that would make the debt worse, it would be better in terms of accountability. You have people who voted for legislation that grew the debt and are saying i do not want to lift the debt ceiling as though it was not their policy that they voted for that are making the debt worse. You need to link the debt ceiling to the point where you decide to borrow. The point i would make to lawmakers who want to be fiscally responsible is what they should promise is not to lift the debt ceiling, but promise not to vote for legislation that borrows more than we already are borrowing. Host our guest is with us until 10 00. If you want to ask about the current state of debt ceiling negotiations. 202 7488000 for democrats. 202 7488001 for republicans. Independent bank for how much does that impact if all of those things would come . If everything on on the wish list came true, how much of an impact with that make . Guest let me try to put the context in their. If you want to balance a budget over 10 years, which there had been talk the republicans were going to ask for it is too much. You cannot balance a budget over 10 years. We are too big in a fiscal whole. That would have required 16 trillion in savings. We have never had a deal that saved close to that much. The package they came out with after 4. 8 trillion in savings. That 4. 8 trillion gets you a credible first step on fiscal improvement. It would be one of the bigger deals in recent history. I do not think it is going to be that big. The president s budget had asked for 3 trillion in savings. The that was a credible first step, that would not fix the problem but move us in the right direction. Most budget deals in the past have made the deficit worse, not better. Both of those amounts are good starts that will not get us where we need to go. Where do we need to go since we do not have to balance the budget to be in a much improved fiscal situation . We need to get to a point where our debt is not going faster than our overall economy. Just to stabilize the debt at the level where it is, just short of 100 of gdp, would require about 8 trillion in savings over 10 years. Whether they end up with 1 trillion or 4 trillion in savings, more will need to be done. If they are able to generate some savings instead of most often bipartisan cooperation is i borrow for what i want, arent we great for doing bipartisan work and add to the National Debt that weakens our economy and National Security and world abroad that is not where we want to go. In level of savings is an important first step to take this fiscal situation seriously. They are negotiating on the least important part of the budget in terms of generating longterm savings. The big drivers of our National Debt are our growing health care cost, retirement, Social Security, medicare both heading towards insolvency the fact we are not making changes to those are a disservice to people who depend on them. Where going to need more revenues, higher taxes. We are going to have to make these changes so we can slow growth of Interest Payments on debt. Once we get through this negotiation, land this plane, have some savings, lift the debt ceiling, another thing i hope will be part of the deal is a true, Fiscal Commission that will look at the biggest drivers of the debt, how to advert solvency to those programs, get Additional Savings and i would suggest how to reform the debt ceiling, which is something that has to happen so we do not have this drama time and time again. Host our first call comes from kentucky, this is sandra, democrats line. Good morning. Caller good morning. I would just like to ask about people paying their fair share of taxes. Would that help the debt . I just do not know. So, i would like to have her opinion. Host thank you. She will answer the question. Guest yes, people need to pay their fair share. One of the best ways to get more revenue before we start raising taxes i want to address the myths of both political parties, but yes. People paying what they owe is one of the most important parts to start collecting revenue. There is a tax cap, the amount owed that is not paid. One of the things that happened in the Inflation Reduction Act last year was there was more funding for the irs. One of the parts of the republican acts that have come up that will be counterproductive is to repeal that money for the irs. The additional money is going to be used to try and close that tax gap and ensure people that are not paying everything they owe those taxes are collected. A lot of times, it is not just people acting in bad faith. It is also people that because the tax system is so complicated, they do not pay the right amounts. Another goal of this funding is to get the irs to be more responsive to taxpayers questions about what they owe and how to fill out the forms, to simplify them. I do not i am very worried lots of people sell free lunches when it comes to fiscal policy. I do not want to pretend just collecting taxes owed will fix this problem. It will collect significant revenues and is an important part of regaining trust. There is a loss of trust between parties, citizens and the government. Part of that trust needs to be regained where people understand they are paying taxes that are road and corporations individuals are also paying theirs because we have to be part of keeping this system fair and working. Host will is in kentucky, republican line. Hello. Caller thank. This might sound a little farfetched, but i just paid 300. 350 for a loaf of bread. I was wondering, how many people understand billions and trillions of dollars . They are really concerned. Me, myself, just spending. 350 four a loaf of bread, i do not get it. Host thank you. Guest i may not be understanding how much you paid for that loaf of bread. You may have overpaid. I may not be understanding. Your point about billions and trillions, i do understand and agree with. It is impossible to make sense of what a billion, let alone a trillion dollars is. One of the statistics i must worry about is we are going to spend 10. 6 trillion on Interest Payments over the next decade on Interest Payments over the next decade. Can understand that is a large number. What does it mean . It is difficult to know. I will plug a program we built because of this question. If you look at the committee for responsible federate federal budgets website, we have interactive tools where you can try to fix Social Security, take quizzes, i think they are interesting. There is one called, is it worth it . Which breaks down the cost of our programs, tax cuts as a share of households or family or individual. At that point, you can look at the fact that Interest Payments can cost as much as 2000 over 2000 per family per year. Any of the things these things you can look at on an individual level. The numbers are astronomically large. During covid, when we talked about the budget, we were talking in billions. Covid changed the default number to be trillions, that is even more difficult to understand. Host this is the website, by the way. The list of policy proposals, the first is student debt changes. Guest that is one of the things they have asked to repeal. There would be a tremendous savings from it. I think that is going to end up getting decided in the courts. Our organization was concerned about the fact student debt repeal, very expensive, poorly targeted and went through the administration instead of congress, were something that costley would generally need to be approved by congress. That was a huge switch that was not done in a way appropriate budgeting should be done. Host jim joins us from pennsylvania, independent line. Caller , good morning pedro. I like this guest you have on. I hope she can explain what they did down there. My question to your guest is, a, whatever happened to Simpson Bowles . I think it was under clinton or obama that they had this Simpson Bowles i heard you mention, maam, about a committee. They did that once before, i think it was called Simpson Bowles. They come up with good recommendations, it was bipartisan and nobody listen to everything. They just threw it out. The other question i have is, i heard a number that blew me away the other day. It was, Illegal Immigrants are costing us about 2 billion a day. That cannot be right. I do not know where that number came from. Cbo, my wife says. The last two years, 5 million have crossed our border and are here. I know right now, only about 40 of americans pay income tax. Now weve got another 5 million not paying income tax. These numbers, out here in the hinterland where we work hard and put our money in banks, now we seen even the banks are failing. Is that going to be a problem down the road . Host thank you for the questions. Guest tons of great stuff. I will work my way. Backwards i do not think on the micro level it is going to be a problem depending on how much money you have in banks. You want to make sure it is insured. On the macro level it has been assuring there have not been more tank failures. We are in a tricky moment where inflation is too high. We are trying to avoid a recession and contagion in the Banking Sector. I am feeling relatively good about where we are. I think we might go into a small recession. I do not know, nobody can predict this with any real confidence. On a macro level, it is troubling. It is a time where people are nervous. We do not feel like our political system is working well. We do not feel like there is stability in the economy. I share and understand the general, i do not feel like things are working and this uncertainty makes me nervous. On your immigration question, i do not know where the 2 billion number comes from. If you and your wife are reading cbo, that is awesome. That is my favorite thing to read. The documents that come out of the Congressional Budget Office are balanced, it is what caused me to change my career. I was working in a different field and started reading cbo reports and found them compelling, which said something about me. They are well written. They have a number about immigration, that is where i would go to learn about it. Host if you are done. [laughter] guest thank you for the question on simpson bowl. It was a remarkable commission a little over a decade ago. It was bipartisan, it had support from members of congress who were as extreme as tom coburn, who is no longer with us, a true blue conservative and durbin, a true progressive and concerned about the wellbeing of lower income people. These people came to understand how the fiscal situation was so bad needed to make changes, also came to understand each others values. On the right, republicans cared about making sure Economic Growth was not hampered. On the left, democrats making sure the most vulnerable were protected. They came up with a blueprint that would have done wonders for the overall physical health of the country. Some of those things have been adopted, but most of them, we should bring it back and start their. It was the only time when the Simpson Bowles commission came out with their work, both the New York Times and wall street journal had glowing editorials on the same day. It was a sensible, balanced, bipartisan plan. The reason why Simpson Bowles can be helpful is congress so many leaders know what needs to happen. They know we cannot demagogue Social Security and medicare, we have to make changes. We have to make changes to make sure those programs that do not become insolvent. There is not enough revenue to fund the spending programs we and they want and to put in the budget. The promise not to raise taxes on people making under 400,000 is not reasonable. We are going to have to raise taxes and do real reforms to spending. Simpson bowles recognized commissions allowed politicians to have cover so they can say, i do not like the way this was done but at least it would make the necessary improvements on the debt. Yes, i think we need another Simpson Bowles to something completely different that looks at broader Economic Issues like how you control inflation, Economic Growth and the Banking Sector along with our fiscal challenges and reforming the debt ceiling that has to happen. There is a great plan called the trust act that is bipartisan and bicameral. It says any program headed towards insolvency within 15 years, we will put together a special group that will try to fix that. , senator manchin senator romney are the two sponsors of that. There are a lot of ideas out there. Simpson bowles came very close. It was really disappointing and discouraging they were not able to pass that. I believe if it had been brought to the floor for a vote, it would have passed. There were a number of members of congress who worked tirelessly to get it done. I think Political Leadership often stands in the way, and not all the leaders at the time many were incredibly helpful, but there were some who did not want that bill to get done as it could have and should have. It was a big loss. We would be in a better place today if Simpson Bowles had been adopted. That is why i am hoping this part of the deal there will be a commission that gives us a chance to focus on the bigger problems that are weakening our budget, our economy and our role in the world. Host we have a viewer off of twitter that ask you had stated we were approaching the ratio around world war ii. How do we fix that . Is it through tax cuts and spending or tax raises and spending . Guest cutting spending which generated a huge amount of Economic Growth and it was a time when workers were flooding back into the workforce. We had demographics on our side at the time whereas right now, we have demographics working against us where we have the big ab boom generation which has moved in large part to retirement. We should have made changes to our fiscal situation before they were retirees. Any changes to these programs are going to protect retirees, they are not part of the solution looking toward the future. If we had done this when a bigger population was still working, it would have helped more. We have the headlands of retirees and the growing aging of the population whereas after world war ii we had demographics on our signed. If you look at where we are now, any fiscal plan that is going to bring that debt down from around 106 after world war ii, it is going to require anything is on the table. All parts of the budget are going to have to be part of the solution. So not everybody feels it is there one piece of the budget not getting harmed. I think the debt ceiling negotiation, it makes sense to look at spending caps. It should be the first step for the down payment on generating bigger savings that will be necessary. Host we will hear next from jan in orlando, republican line. Caller hello . Host you are on, go ahead. Caller hi. We need to address the elephant in the room, why cant the dems and republicans get along . I mean, that is a big problem right there. Number two, why are we sending trillions and billions of dollars to help out countries when we need some money for ourselves . I am all for helping other countries, but weve got to take care of ourselves to overhear. Host thanks, jan. Guest that elephant in the room was quite the elephant. Let me address overseas money. There is no right or wrong answer on this. Peoples preferences about how we allocate the resources in our budget are going to be different, and that is legitimate. What we need is an actual budget process where the Budget Committees do budgets and the bodies support those budgets, reconcile the differences, we fund the government without shutting the government down. We need an actual budget process that will look at the diverse points of view we have and figure out how to budget. I would make an argument a lot of money we spend overseas is an investment in National Security in a different way. I think that investment in countries and their stability around the world can end up having profoundly positive effects on our wellbeing here. It is not always as direct as the seeing things on healthcare costs. I agree that the countrys obligation to take care of its citizens and the point i would make is often, overseas investment can be part of taking care of its citizens when done in a smart way. To your elephant in the room, i am exasperated as i am sure so Many Americans are. I am a political independent. I do not feel aligned to either party. I think both of them makes sense on different topics. I have different preferences that align with republicans and democrats. I do not think our lining up as to teams and feeling that beating up each other from that Team Perspective is doing anything positive for the country right now. I think we are at a point where party is becoming more important than the wellbeing of a nation. That is highly dangerous. When i think about i agree, i am sad, were read and concerned about it. In this city, it feels like if you are not on team d or r, you are ideologically homeless if you are an independent. It should be discussions about policies and we should be unified that we want the wellbeing of the country and we may disagree on what gets us there, but we are all starting from a place of trying to think through our own positions and figure out how we can cooperate and compromise. The problem with polarization, partisanship and where we are right now is that it leads people to focus on things like politics rather than policy. The shortterm, the next political cycle rather than the longterm wellbeing of the country. It leads extremes to have louder voices instead of compromise. On fiscal issues, it leads us to perpetuate free lunch myths. On one side you hear tax cuts will pay for themselves. They do not and they will not. They will pay for a small fraction, but not for themselves. On the others you hear, we can print our way out of it. When you print too much money, it leads to inflation. Instead of doing the tough choices and dealing with tradeoffs, polarization and partisanship leads to free lunches you hear all the time, people try to avoid doing hard things because they do not think if they are honest about, we have to raise taxes and cut spending, voters will tolerate it. They are worried they will get beaten up and attack ads are run against anybody that rightly says revenue has to go up but we have to address the insolvency we are headed towards in Social Security and medicare that are going to lead to benefit cuts and provider cuts if we do not do anything. They get attacked for those. We are in a moment, a long moment, rarely obligations the devotion to party has led to bad policies and i feel like the debt ceiling negotiations right now, i hope they have a sense of where we can land this. They are going to have to come up with showing us narratives or their site made sense. That is part of a negotiation. There should be more focus on what on doing what is right for the country, finding ways to generate savings that we need. We should be able to agree on some of those objectives. It seems anything one party once, the other party rejects. That is a mindset that is damaging and getting worse. We have complicating factors that are making the world much more complicated, our country much more complicated. I cannot give a talk without talking about how we should be focusing on how ai is going to change everything we have been dealing with. Misinformation is a real issue. We need to be focused on those real threats and be doing that in a unified way. Host you said you have a love of cbo documents. You took a look at the cbos recent 2023 baseline and ask people to look at that and look at scenarios that could stem from that. Can you condense that for our viewers who might be interested in what the cbo has said and where we are at . Guest the biggest things to take away from that is the fact that we are going to be spending over 10 trillion on Interest Payments over the next decade. That is money that will not be spent on new programs or tax cuts. It is going to pay for interest first. The only way to change that line item is to bring our fiscal situation down. We are going to be spending 80 trillion. When we are talking about cutting a few trillion over the next 10 years, it is important to think about where you are going to cut that. The numbers are small compared to the overall spending. The deficits are going to be too large. We are going to be borrowing over 20 trillion over the next decade. That is going to bring our gdp back up over the record we had before. There is not a single part of the budget and now that we are getting warnings that Social Security and medicare will be insolvent within a decade changes now can be done gradually. There is not a single part of the cbo report, i encourage people to read them there is not a single part that is reassuring. Another thing i always take, this is not explicit in the cbo report, we look at how much we are spending per seniors compared to children. We are spending six dollars for seniors for every one dollar we are spending on people under 18. There are metrics like that that concerned me that we are not making the appropriate investments in our future. Weve got a generation that is not having investments in their Human Capital and education in the way that is necessary, and at the same time, and heralding the biggest that load we have ever had. It used to be when we ran debts we would say, each generation will be better off than the previous generation. That is not anywhere close to the short thing the assured thing right now. The Younger Generation are already seeing it. They are inheriting incredible, incredible challenges that we have been unable to resolve and fix and have gotten much worse under our leadership. I am very worried about the low level investment in the next generation. Host stacy is in wisconsin, democrats line. Good morning. Caller good morning. I have a question i know that thousands of people like me, nobody ever talks about Survivor Benefits from widows. My son is disabled. My husband died in 2014. I had to take care of him, i had to quit my job. It is all we have to live on. Nobody ever talks about, they just keep saying insolvency, but nobody ever talks about, what are they going to do about that and what they expect people who are taking care of the disabled child or disabled parent and they cannot work because they have to take care of them 24 hours a day . Can you please address this . Guest thank you for your question. Your question illustrates why it is so reckless we have had a Political Class that is refusing to talk about and address the fact Social Security will become insolvent if we do not make changes. If we do nothing, every person in Social Security will receive an acrosstheboard benefit cut of 20 to 25 . That is just plain stupid. There are so many retirees, beneficiaries, survivors illustrating who need to be protected by any of those cuts. If we make changes to the program that are done thoughtfully, saved in and targeted in the right places, we can protect everybody who needs protecting. It is my belief, i think there are many people who receive Social Security benefits i know this to be true, people speak up and say i am getting Social Security, i do not need it. I am doing fine, i want to give it back if i knew it were going to go to strengthen the program. One of the places we could start is giving this is the idea of a couple of bipartisan members of congress, what if we start a plan where you check the box if what you want to do is return your Social Security benefit and put it back into the system . There are many people who need it less, that is where you want to start looking for the slowest growth for benefits for people who do not need them. There is a few people are only getting out of Social Security what they paid and. Paid in. The truth is, because we are living so much longer than we used to, many people who are living long period of time are getting much more out than they put in. Some people desperately need that money. That is how the program should work. Some people who do not need it, perhaps there is a way once you have gotten what you have paid in, we could give it back or make changes in those benefits. We can lift the payroll tax cap, fix how we calculate inflation, gradually raise that retirement age for younger people, reflecting the fact we live much longer and Life Expectancy is many years longer than when the program started and Life Expectancy was only 62 and the retirement age was 65. There are smart, gradual, thoughtful bipartisan changes we can make to this program. They should protect people who have so many important stories like yours, where they need every benefit and possibly more. Maybe we need to put in a minute if it minimum benefit. So they are able to be a caregiver as needed. There is lots of tweaks we can make to the program. What we cannot do and i was disappointed in the president s state of the union, lets put together a Bipartisan Group and get to it we have to make these changes. Just because it is politically popular to promise not to make them it does not mean you are protecting the program. You are really leaving the program vulnerable. Host this is from chris in illinois, republican line. Caller thank you for taking my call. My question has to do with one of the parts of the budget that people say it is hard to touch, that is the defense portion. One of the things in the last three decades, we have had several wars that have cost us quite a bit and added quite a bit to the deficit on the debt. I wanted to see what your thoughts were on whether or not cutting defense in some ways was a thing we should look at and how we will get to other wars. The Defense Budget has failed several audits. If we could recover some of what we think were losing their, what would be the effect . Guest Great Questions today. It has been a change in policy we no longer pay for wars. In the past when we were at war, there would be some form of revenue increased to offset other costs. It would make sense we would do that going forward. I am not sure that wars are going to take the shame the same shape and form in the past. There are going to be all kinds of wars, that is a different breed entirely. The notion that when we are at a war, we would want to pay for it makes sense and it is a shame we stop doing that. It would have helped our to fit our deficit if we had paid for those wars. The Defense Budget, yes and no. It is important to listen to our National Security experts and listen to what our needs are. There are places for savings in the budget. There are lots of ways in the ways we do procurement. One of the complicating issues is, so many defense programs that are overspending many of these programs are huge job providers in different districts and states. There is a huge constituency of support for them. It is harder to make changes. There are a number of places we could have savings in the Defense Budget, including entitlement programs in defense. On the other hand, it is fair to say it is becoming a riskier world and lots of places. While i think that our savings that could and should be had in the defense department, we are going to see ramping up of spending in different areas. Overall, i do not think we will we able to a shrinking of defense in the share of gdp to help get our fiscal situation under control. It is more likely we will end up spending more on defense because of the tensions going on around the world. Cyber is a huge area of this. I hope while we are doing that, we can cut as much of the defense unnecessary spending as possible. I think we will see that in National Security. Host greg, go ahead from maryland. Hello. Caller this is my first time getting through. Host you are on. Go ahead. Caller thank you, sir. My memory goes back to the first time the budget, for the last time, it got put into balance. We economically grew our way into it. We expanded our way into balance. You know, i am not an economist. I think we have to have gdp at 12 , 15 in order to think of anything like that happening now. It is almost not feasible. I watch this stuff and thought about it a lot. We have raised taxes, we have lowered taxes. We have done every combination there is about tinkering around with the taxes to solve this problem. What are we going to do . Are we going to cut taxes . Are we going to raise them back to where they were . It seems like we just keep adding to the debt. I do not understand why it would take a lot of hard work, but if we could get the cost of living in this country under control, it is a simplistic theory, but it would cost a whole lot less to run our government. Host thanks, caller. Guest the last time we balance the budget we increased taxes and reduced spending. There was strong Economic Growth, it was temporary and not sustained. All those factors help. I worry there is the belief we can grow our way out of this problem. We cannot. We should look at policy that helps promote growth. We should tax the things that help promote growth more than things that do not and the spending reduction should be consistent with things that help promote growth. We are not going to come close to growing our way out of this problem. You would need growth levels much higher than we are going to see at a sustained level. There are chances there will be unanticipated productivity gains. I talked about my concerns with ai. There are upsides with technologies and innovations that could promote growth but we cannot count on them. To throw cold water on that notion we can grow our way out of it, we cannot. Growth is better than no growth. But in the end, we have to be realistic. We will have to look at taxes and spending. And i want to remind people that the reason it matters so much, a healthy fiscal situation, is to be prepared for the next emergency. It means our Interest Payments are not hurting other parts of the budget. It means our state of living is higher than it otherwise would be. It means we are not as dependent on borrowing from countries to finance our spending. It means we are able to update our social contract, which is outdated. It is focused on the problems of the last century instead of on the future. It means you have flexibility in the budget. Even though these things are hard, and i know it is difficult to say here is the truth, we have to fix medicare, we have to raise taxes, but that is the truth and there is a payoff in terms of the fiscal policy and Economic Health and wellbeing of the country. And our role in the world. So, if we can say we actually want our political leaders to make those hard decisions, it would be better for the country overall. Host the committee for responsible federal now live to House Speaker Kevin Mccarthy who is updating reporters on debt talks with president biden. Live coverage on cspan. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2023] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org]