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Source: Congress.gov
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The hearing will come to order. Welcome everyone to the budget committee's hearing on the fiscal state of the nation. I cannot think of a more important conversation on Capitol Hill than this. And so we are honored by your presence and appreciate your insights. Today, we will hear from a panel of witnesses. And if I might briefly introduce them, we've got Dr. Joshua Rall, senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. He leads Hoover's fiscal policy initiative. He previously served on the White House Council of Economic Advisers from 2019 to 2020. was also a member or is also a member of the Congressional Budget Office's Panel of Economic Advisors. So, Mr. Joshua, we appreciate you being here.
Dr. Paul Winfrey, my friend and current CEO of the Economic Policy Innovation Center, or EPIC. He previously served in the White House as Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council, and Director of Budget Policy during President Trump's first term. Can any one person really do all three of those jobs, Paul? That's embarrassing. Or very impressive. Dr. Winfrey served as the Director of Economic Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation. And Dr. Winfrey, we appreciate you being here today. Mr. Don Schneider, Deputy Head of the US Policy at Piper Sandler. He previously served as the Chief Economist at the great, most powerful committee in Congress, Mr. Ranking Member, the House Ways and Means Committee. Would you agree with that, at least?
Can we start there? It's a tie with budget. Yeah, well, that's, wow, how did I miss that? Yes, it's a close tie with budget. And he's also an economist or former economist for our budget committee. And we appreciate your service to the country and to Congress and our fellow members over the years. Mr. Michael Linden, Senior Policy Fellow at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. Mr. Linden previously served in the Biden administration and on the staff of the Senate Budget Committee. So we appreciate your service to our country. And we know you all miss the Budget Committee just dearly. We are ready to just get started and make a few opening comments. I'm going to yield myself such time as I may consume. As I stated before, I can't think of a more important topic, a more important conversation, or more important context to the most consequential legislative opportunity and lawmaking mechanism of budget reconciliation, which is ongoing, than the fiscal state of the nation, than the facts and figures and forecast of the nation's fiscal health. The fiscal state of the nation, by any measure, is in a dire state and condition and is rapidly in decline. I don't think that's up for debate. I think the question is, how much longer do we have to allow this unsustainable fiscal trajectory to persist without some intervention? Both parties, I will say from the outset, as I'm fond of saying actually over the years as budget chairman, both parties have contributed to this.
You know, my Democrat colleagues will grow the government and increase spending, and they will make statements of paying for it through taxes or as we say, other people's money, and it never works out quite like they plan. Of course, Republicans, in their own way, leave the deficits growing because we think somehow we can grow out of a World War levels of debt and deficits. But I believe we crossed the Rubicon on growing out of this a good while ago. But it's okay because Republicans have the heavy mantle of reining in the spending, the runaway unbridled spending that's driving the debt. So fear not, fellow Americans. Republicans will simply offset their cost for defense and for tax cuts with spending with spending reductions.
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