My oldest son is 13. While he’s thinking about his football team and when he can shoot hoops with his buddies next weekend, here’s what I’m thinking about:
If our federal spending maintains status quo, Max will graduate college unable to make major coming-of-age purchases, such as a car or a home. Our Treasury bonds will lose their worth, interest rates will soar and a loan will be out of reach. Meanwhile, inflation will raise his cost of living, from groceries to clothing.
These realities will make saving for retirement nearly impossible, which is especially problematic as Social Security will have hit a cliff in 2032 — forcing cuts for current beneficiaries, not just future beneficiaries.
The national debt must be addressed
In the next 10 years, our gross federal debt will rise from $40 trillion to nearly $64 trillion.
According to the latest baseline from the Congressional Budget Office, the fiscal year 2026 deficit is the third-highest in American history. The deficit alone will be greater than every penny spent by the federal government between 1789 and 2023. In summary, my and my four boys’ generations are in for one of the most tenuous economic environments in recent history.
To meaningfully address our debt, we must require Congress to examine and address the entire federal budget more frequently. House Republicans, including my colleagues on the House Budget Committee, have worked hard to craft meaningful reforms to our budgetary systems.
We will never climb out of our mounting debt if we do not both reform our legislative process and crack down on fraud.
I introduced the Comprehensive Congressional Budget Act to reform the budget process and provide accountability to taxpayers by requiring Congress to debate and vet every dollar that leaves the Treasury. My proposal updates the annual budget and appropriations process by requiring Congress to vote on the entire federal budget each year, rather than only the 12 appropriations bills that cover one quarter of all federal spending.
However, the truth is that though such legislative efforts have potential to turn the tide, they must work in tandem with an aggressive fight against the rampant, industrial-scale fraud happening within our government programs.
Fraud within government programs must be stopped
The Government Accountability Office, or GAO, estimates that the U.S. government loses as much as $500 billion every year to fraud. That’s $4,000 per American household wasted to fraudsters and scammers.
No government program is secure from these threats. Criminals have stolen from childcare, unemployment, student aid and welfare programs.
As Chair of the Budget Committee’s Health Task Force, I introduced legislation to invest in the Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control Program to fund attorneys, agents and technology for the Department of Health and Human Services to go after and prevent fraud in Medicare and Medicaid. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the savings for this investment would be at least $168 billion over 10 years, with a return of $7 in savings for every $1 spent.
This is the right fight, and the Trump administration has recognized the importance of protecting hardworking Americans from paying the price of this crime. In March, the administration launched the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud. In the months following, the task force has worked with federal and state-level agencies to uncover fraudulent cases, charge criminals, launch whistleblower programs and announce the new National Fraud Enforcement Division at the Department of Justice.
The uncovering of fraud in recent months is staggering. In June, Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr. and CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz announced findings that over one million Affordable Care Act enrollees do not have a Social Security number, enabling billions of taxpayer dollars to pay for fake patients.
A GAO report in July confirmed that CMS’s current structure allows rogue health insurance brokers to change or end consumers’ plans without their knowledge, creating an environment ripe for fraud. In April, the Small Business Administration referred 562,000 suspected fraudulent loans to the Department of the Treasury for debt collection. The list goes on and on.
We will never climb out of our mounting debt if we do not both reform our legislative process and crack down on fraud. Now is the time to address the underlying broken systems that have brought us to this critical moment. The Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are seizing this chance to protect Americans by fighting fraud, scrutinizing federal spending, finding solutions to lower our deficits and creating a better economic future for Max and our next generation.