Congressman David Schweikert took to the U.S. House of Representatives floor this week in another attempt to reason with his colleagues over the current fiscal state of our nation.
Schweikert, a seven-term lawmaker in the U.S. House, serving on the powerful Ways and Means Committee, spoke on the House floor – as he often does – to highlight the latest numbers and analysis from the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) baseline projections of the federal budget over the next ten years.
In his speech, Schweikert addressed his Democrat colleagues’ “avoidance of the math,” saying that, at the rate the government is spending money, Americans 25 years from now will, according to the CBO, see their taxes doubled, their corporate taxes doubled, and tariffs doubled – “just to maintain baseline services.”
Schweikert also took President Joe Biden to task for using “Social Security and Medicare as props for his re-election campaign.” Congressman Schweikert questioned if his Democrat colleagues actually have a plan to help fix the Medicare and Social Security Trust Funds, which he alleged will be gone in a decade, “doubling senior poverty in this country.”
Schweikert also exposed the numbers behind a shrinking American workforce, stating, “So you have a world now where my brothers and sisters on the Left run around saying, ‘Well, we have this low unemployment.’ And then you look at the available populations that should be in the labor force, but they don’t show up in the data because they’re not looking.” He concluded his point by reminding his listeners that “we have fewer people today in the labor force than we did before the pandemic – by millions.”
The congressman attempted to appeal to the common sense of his legislative colleagues, challenging Representatives to think about the long-term effects of the fiscal policies that they pass for the country, saying, “The reason I walk through all these slides is the first part of understanding how devastating the debt is. And it’s not pretend. You can’t just say, ‘We’ll just pretend. We’ll print a $1 trillion coin and walk away from it.’ You’ve got to stop the clown show…..The second half of this presentation was hope…Stop being afraid of it, Congress. Stop acting like a protection racket where you protect incumbency. Not incumbent-elected, but incumbent bureaucracies, incumbent business models. Design the tax code. Design the regulatory code. If the Democrats continue insisting to subsidize everything, fine, design it so there’s competition. Not the chosen favorites that they want to hand a grant out to. And in that competition, I think actually becomes the disruption that saves us.”
Congressman Schweikert was speaking before a near-empty chamber, and it remains to be seen if any of his colleagues on the Left will heed his pleas for more fiscal responsibility, sanity, and foresight into the consequences of the future. The U.S. Congress is expected to have fierce debates this year over legislative spending and borrowing with key deadlines approaching for the federal government.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
The most highly-contested races tightened overnight after Election Day votes were counted, leaving a substantial number of early ballots left to process.
In eight of these 13 races, Democrats lead Republicans. Total ballots processed numbered over 1.8 million, or 44 percent of total registered voters (over 4.1 million). Voter turnout in the 2018 midterms was over 2.4 million ballots cast (nearly 65 percent of the 3.7 million total registered voters).
In the Senate race, incumbent Democrat Mark Kelly leads Republican Blake Masters by nearly 90,000 votes, 51 to 46 percent.
In the gubernatorial race, Democrat Katie Hobbs leads Republican Kari Lake by over 11,700 votes, 50 to 49 percent.
In the secretary of state race, Democrat Adrian Fontes leads Republican Mark Finchem by over 84,500 votes, 52 to 47 percent.
In the attorney general race, Democrat Kris Mayes leads Republican Abraham Hamadeh by 4,000 votes, both sharing about 50 percent.
In the state treasurer race, incumbent Republican Kimberly Yee leads Democrat Martín Quezada by 201,200 votes, 55 to 44 percent.
In the superintendent race, Republican Tom Horne leads incumbent Democrat Kathy Hoffman by nearly 7,700 votes, both sharing about 50 percent.
In the first congressional district, Democrat Jevin Hodge leads incumbent Republican David Schweikert by 4,400 votes, 51 to 49 percent.
In the second congressional district, Republican Eli Crane leads incumbent Democrat Tom O’Halleran by 18,700 votes, 53 percent to 46 percent.
In the third congressional district, incumbent Democrat Ruben Gallego leads Republican Jeff Nelson Zink by 47,300 votes, 76 to 24 percent.
In the fourth congressional district, incumbent Democrat Greg Stanton leads Republican Kelly Kooper by 24,400 votes, 57 percent to 43 percent.
In the fifth congressional district, incumbent Republican Andy Biggs leads by 38,200 votes, 56 to 38 percent.
In the sixth congressional district, Republican Juan Ciscomani leads Democrat Kirsten Engel by 2,400 votes, 50 to 49 percent.
In the seventh congressional district, incumbent Democrat Raúl Grijalva leads Republican Luis Pozzolo by nearly 34,000 votes, 64 to 36 percent.
Incumbents Debbie Lesko (R-AZ-08) and Paul Gosar (R-AZ-09) were unchallenged.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
All 11 members of Arizona’s Congressional delegation have come together to ask President Joe Biden to approve a non-presidential state funeral when the last surviving Congressional Medal of Honor recipient from World War II passes away.
Hershel “Woody” Williams, who is 98, became the last living Medal of Honor recipient from World War II in April 2021. A state funeral would serve as a tribute to Williams’ heroic actions in battle as well as “each soldier that bravely fought for our country,” according to Rep. David Schweikert (AZ-06).
“The heroes from World War II deserve every honor our country can give them, and that includes paying our respects to the last surviving Medal of Honor recipient from this war when he dies,” Schweikert said Wednesday. “By doing this, our nation can offer a final honor and salute to Mr. Williams and the millions of American heroes from World War II.”
According to his biography, Williams served in the U.S. Marine Corps and took part in the Battle of Guam in 1944 and the Battle of Iwo Jima in 1945. It was for his heroism during the Battle of Iwo Jima that President Harry S. Truman would later present Williams with the Medal of Honor, the military’s highest decoration of valor, from for actions “above and beyond the call of duty.”
After the war, Williams went to work for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs as a counselor. He continued in the Marine Corps Reserve until 1969 and stayed with his VA job for more than three decades. The Navy warship USS Hershel “Woody” Williams was commissioned in March 2020.
Four Arizonans received the Medal of Honor for their actions during World War II: Captain Joseph Foss, U.S. Marine Corps; Private First Class Silveste Herrera, U.S. Army; Sergeant Manuel V. Mendoza, U.S. Army; and Sergeant Max Thompson, U.S. Army. https://avhof.org/inductees/medal-of-honor-recipients/
Also signing the letter to President Biden were Rep. Rep. Tom O’Halleran (AZ-01), Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ-02), Rep. Raúl Grijalva (AZ-03), Rep. Paul Gosar (AZ-04), Rep. Andy Biggs (AZ-05), Rep. Ruben Gallego (AZ-07), Rep. Debbie Lesko (AZ-08), and Rep. Greg Stanton (AZ-09). Arizona’s two U.S. Senators signed too.
With telehealth services growing in popularity and necessity during the pandemic, U.S. Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ) has signed a letter with several members of Congress calling on House and Senate leadership to include an extension of Medicare pandemic telehealth authorities in upcoming government funding legislation.
The letter acknowledges that telehealth—or telemedicine as it is also called—has become an essential part of the health care system, especially in rural communities. Congress recognized the importance of such services when it passed COVID-19 legislation to increase access to telehealth services for Medicare beneficiaries.
Telehealth services allows a physician or a specialist to provide healthcare without an in-person office visit. It also allows remote monitoring of a patient’s vital signs or other information, and provides for secure messaging or email with medical personnel.
But expanded access and funding for Medicare beneficiaries to utilize the services is temporary as it is tied to the COVID-19 public health emergency declaration, which is renewed in three-month increments.
According to the Jan. 28 letter, extending the current coverage of Medicare telehealth services would provide much-needed certainty to health care providers and patients. It would also give Congress time to enact permanent telehealth legislation to keep up with the burgeoning industry.
“Ramping up telehealth requires significant costs and resources from health care providers,” the letter to Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy states. “Without more definitive knowledge about the duration of the pandemic and Medicare’s long-term coverage of telehealth, many organizations have been hesitant to fully invest in telehealth.”
Permanent legislative reforms to telehealth services are included in various current bills under consideration, including the CONNECT for Health Act which has bipartisan support from over 170 members of Congress. Such long-term solutions are imperative to increase access to care, reduce costs, and improve health outcomes, the letter states.
“An extension of the telehealth authorities would provide assurance that the investments will be sustainable over the long term. It would also reassure patients that their care will not end abruptly,” it states.
Nearly four dozen lawmakers signed the letter supporting a telehealth pandemic extension. The signers run the gamut of political ideology, including Schweikert and fellow Representatives Bill Johnson (R-OH), Cheri Bustos (D-IL.), and Don Bacon (R-NE).
Signers from the U.S. Senate include Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and Marco Rubio (R-FL). Both of Arizona’s Senators also signed.
State Senator Nancy Barto (R-Phoenix) shared that she was the sole state legislator from Arizona in attendance at the rally outside the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) on Wednesday. Inside, the justices held a hearing for a watershed case in abortion law: Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Their ruling is anticipated in the spring.
Barto told AZ Free News that the hearing was historic, as was the gathering outside the SCOTUS building advocating for an end to abortion. She said the rally was peaceful, and recounted how diverse their rally was: individuals reportedly represented from all across the political spectrum, the religious and non-religious, and a generational attendance from tikes to older adults such as herself.
“America has lived this lie long enough. Our laws need to be modernized to recognize [the science]: viability is different now, women are not burdened by pregnancy anymore. The greater standard is, of course, that our constitution needs to fit our laws and protect life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” observed Barto. “We will wait and see and keep praying for these justices to really follow the changing hearts in America, hearts that really have turned. People no longer support abortion through nine months; the more that they learn about what abortion does to women and the unborn in terms of pain, and how the development of an unborn child is trackable from the earliest moments in utero.”
The case brought by Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a Mississippi abortion clinic challenging the constitutionality of Mississippi’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks. On behalf of the defense, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch countered that SCOTUS should leave abortion law to individual states. A SCOTUS ruling in favor of Mississippi would overturn the precedent set by the 1973 case that legalized abortion nationally, Roe v. Wade, which was upheld in the 1992 case Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
The crux of the plaintiff’s arguments during the hearing concerned the need for SCOTUS to stand by precedent set in previous rulings, discussed as the question of “stare decisis.” They also insisted that the interests of the woman outweighed those of the state, especially prior to the viability of the unborn child.
The plaintiffs also admitted that they were arguing a constitutional right to abortion under the constitutional guarantee of liberty when pressed by Associate Justice Clarence Thomas as to what right they were arguing needed protecting. Previous SCOTUS rulings on abortion considered concepts entailing rights under the Constitution and various amendments, such as personhood, undue burdens, and privacy.
Founding Father James Wilson warned of licentiousness, a concept conflated with liberty but truly its antithesis. “Licentious,” or “license,” comes from the Latin term “licentia”: an unbridled, wanton, chaotic freedom. The distinction between liberty and license wasn’t made by anyone in the hearing. Wilson was one of the original SCOTUS justices, serving from the onset of its establishment by the Judiciary Act of 1789 until his death in 1798.
“Liberty and happiness have a powerful enemy on each hand; on the one hand tyranny, on the other licentiousness. To guard against the latter, it is necessary to give the proper powers to government; and to guard against the former, it is necessary that those powers should be properly distributed,” asserted Wilson.
After the hearing, Congressman David Schweikert (R-AZ-06) shared one of his floor statements from earlier this year describing how his life was saved when his birth mother chose life over abortion and gave him up for adoption.
“I was born in an unwed mother’s home – so was my brother, so was my sister. You’ve all met my little girl that came to us as a gift out of nowhere. But I’m 38 years old [at the time] and through a series of accidents, I get the phone number for my birth mother – and I call her. And the first words were just through the tears and this high-pitch almost – she was struggling, you could hear her almost hyperventilating – is: ‘I prayed for you every morning. Are you okay? Are you healthy, are you happy?’ And I’m crying on my side, saying, ‘I have a great life. Thank you for letting me live.’ […] My little girl’s third generation adopted, now. […] And we will get together with our birth moms and our moms. The amazing thing is my mom became best of friends with my birth mom. This is the American family of today – let’s love it and respect it.”
Earlier this year, I spoke on the House Floor to share my personal story about how my life was saved when my birth mother chose life and gave me up for adoption.
