by Elizabeth Troutman | Mar 13, 2024 | News
By Elizabeth Troutman |
A bill introduced by Republican Rep. David Schweikert aims to prevent wasted taxpayer dollars on Defense Department audit errors.
The Algorithms Utilized to Detect Institutional Transactions (AUDIT) Act ensures the audit of the Department of Defense’s financial statements is conducted using artificial intelligence to help streamline the internal review process. It also mandates that the technology be developed by both the secretary of defense and Inspector general of the Department of Defense.
“Since 2018, the federal government has spent nearly $1 billion annually trying to audit the Department of Defense, and it costs substantially more to correct the mistakes after its completion,” Schweikert said in a statement. “This legislation helps accelerate the adoption of innovative auditing tools to reduce costs and foster creative solutions that will increase government accountability.
The Pentagon employs 2.9 million people and has over half a million assets worth $3.8 trillion, while its liabilities total $4 trillion, according to Schweikert’s news release. This means personnel must count every single piece of inventory, including military equipment, supplies, and property. In 2019, DOD’s audit totaled $428 million in costs. Correcting the errors after the audit increased the costs by an additional $472 million.
Since it first started auditing itself in 2018, the Defense Department has failed to achieve a clean financial audit each year The 2023 audit required 1,600 auditors and 700 site visits to complete, costing $187 billion and earning a “disclaimer of opinion” rating. This means the department was unable to provide enough financial information to auditors for them to form an opinion.
The bill requires the defense secretary to retire outdated financial management systems that have led to the Pentagon failing six consecutive audits, and directs the secretary to adopt newer technology to facilitate the audit.
“I look forward to working with my colleagues to help modernize how Congress conducts such oversight to protect hardworking taxpayers,” Schweikert said.
Elizabeth Troutman is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send her news tips using this link.
by Elizabeth Troutman | Mar 6, 2024 | News
By Elizabeth Troutman |
Congressman David Schweikert’s new bill would help places of worship and other nonprofit organizations protect themselves from danger.
The Warranting of Religious Spaces to Handle Increased Protection (WORSHIP) Act provides greater flexibility to places of worship and other nonprofit organizations receiving funding from FEMA’s Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP) to bolster security measures against terrorist threats and antisemitic incidents.
“Our communities depend on places of worship to come together and embrace shared beliefs throughout life. No one should feel threatened when exercising their religious liberty, which is fundamentally protected by the First Amendment,” Schweikert, a Republican, said.
Antisemitic incidents in the U.S. increased by 360% in the first three months after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). This is more than triple the number of incidents from the same period last year.
A minimum of 628 reported cases were against synagogues and Jewish community centers, and the preliminary three-month total was higher than the total number of antisemitic incidents tallied in any year over the last decade except for 2022.
The Grand Canyon state has seen its own uptick in antisemitic incidents, as the ADL’s Arizona regional office reported an 86% increase in antisemitic incidents over the past year. The FBI arrested a man for allegedly threatening to execute a Scottsdale rabbi in November.
Crimes motivated by religious bias increased by more than 28% from 2021 to 2022, according to the 2022 Hate Crime Statistics Report released by the FBI. Religion was in the top three bias categories due to the volume of reported hate crime incidents, with the highest religious bias being anti-Jewish.
“I’ve always said my faith motivates me, and I’m proud to introduce this commonsense legislation that will provide our faith-based communities the resources they need to harden security and improve safety,” Schweikert said. “I look forward to working with my colleagues to advance this bill.”
Elizabeth Troutman is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send her news tips using this link.
by Elizabeth Troutman | Feb 27, 2024 | News
By Elizabeth Troutman |
A bill introduced to the House of Representatives would uplift families during the first year of their newborn’s life.
U.S. Representative David Schweikert, a Republican, introduced the Family Growth and Investment Act on Feb. 20. The bill provides families with a one-time tax deduction for non-medical expenses like car seats, strollers, and cribs which are otherwise costly and can deter Americans from raising children.
“I am proud to introduce the Family Growth and Investment Act to support one of the most important decisions that hard working Americans can make — to start and grow a family,” Schweikert said.
Families spend approximately $13,000 per child annually and will spend over $233,000 for food, shelter, and other necessities to raise a child through the age of 18, according to the news release.
Schweikert said he hopes the bill eases that burden on parents during a stressful and financially challenging time of life.
“For many parents, the annual costs of the first years of a child’s life can be daunting regardless of how they raise their family,” Schweikert said. “Already, CBO [the Congressional Budget Office] is projecting that by 2042, there will be more deaths than births in the United States. This pro-family legislation will make it easier for Arizonans and Americans everywhere to enjoy one of life’s greatest gifts.”
The legislation allows for a one-time, above-the-line tax deduction of up to $5,000 for non-medical essential expenses, like bottles, diapers, baby formula, cribs, strollers, and car seats.
The income limit is $100,000 for single filers and $200,000 for joint filers.
The bill is headed for the House Committee on Ways and Means, which Schweikert sits on.
“I look forward to working with my colleagues to help advance this bill and make the American dream more attainable than ever,” the 61-year-old state representative said.
Elizabeth Troutman is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send her news tips using this link.
by Elizabeth Troutman | Jan 10, 2024 | Economy, News
By Elizabeth Troutman |
Rep. David Schweikert, R-Ariz., urged Congress to “take our nation’s fiscal health seriously” in response to the growing national debt.
Schweikert’s Daily Debt Monitor shows the federal government’s gross national debt increasing by $839 billion already this fiscal year, which began in October.
“That’s ~$8.65 billion per day, and just over $100,000 per second,” Schweikert tweeted.
“I implore my brothers and sisters in Congress to take our nation’s fiscal health seriously,” the congressman continued.
The national debt has increased by more than $360 million per hour, $6 million per minute, and $100,00 per second this fiscal year.
The total national debt as of Jan. 4 was more than $34 trillion, compared to around $31 trillion on Jan. 4, 2023. This includes both intragovernmental and publicly held debt. Between 2023 and 2024, there was an increase in debt of more than $7 billion per day and $300 million per hour.
The national debt hit the $34 trillion record this month. The Congressional Budget Office’s January 2020 projections didn’t expect gross federal debt to surpass $34 trillion until fiscal year 2029.
The Congressional Budget Office expects the debt to only get worse in coming years. An estimate shows America’s entitlement spending, mandatory spending, and net interest payments on the debt will exceed the government’s total revenue by the early 2030s.
In June, Republican lawmakers and the White House agreed to temporarily lift the nation’s debt limit, making an agreement that lasts until January 2025.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated in its 30-year outlook last June that publicly held debt will be equal to a record 181% of American economic activity by 2053.
Elizabeth Troutman is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send her news tips using this link.
by Daniel Stefanski | Mar 6, 2023 | News
By Daniel Stefanski |
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.
