Rep. Josh Brecheen and fellow members of the U.S. House of Representatives are sounding the alarm about the nation’s $35 trillion debt and federal budget spending of almost $190,000 per second, “faster than the speed of light.”

Calling the government’s runaway spending an “unsustainable fiscal path,” the first-term Republican Congressman was at the Wheeler Event Center in Sallisaw on Friday for an in-person town hall meeting, and warned his constituents to “get ready, buckle up. You’re going to have to sacrifice.”

“I think there’s a real disconnect in Washington, D.C., between recognizing the problem and knowing what you have to do — I use the word ‘execute’ — on that problem,” Brecheen told the more than two dozen Sequoyah Countians who heard the Congressman’s clarion call to address federal spending. “The math is the math, it doesn’t lie. I think it will lead you to the conclusion that this is how you fix this problem. And our goal is that every member of Congress would have the courage to face the facts, go back and start making these presentations in their Congressional districts and change some mindsets.

“We’ve got to have a change in Washington, D.C., and we’ve got to have a change of ideology, and I’m convinced things have to change from the outside, put pressure on the inside. Our hope is that enough members of Congress will start giving this presentation and people will awaken to the fact of how perverse of an incentive we have to just elect people to just give free candy handouts,” Brecheen said. “What you can finally see is that type of mentality is destroying this country.”

Congress and the deficit

Then Brecheen explained the role of Congress.

“The role of your member of Congress, according to the Constitutional oath that you affirmed, your job is to make sure America is healthy. Oklahoma can’t be your singular focus of making sure Oklahoma’s healthy at the expense of the United States. That defies that Constitutional mandate,” he said. “No, you’re to focus on the federal government so that economic strength is national security. You’re to make sure we have a strong defense, a strong economy, that we have a limited government, not a government that is unlimited that gets involved in all things that are state matters and taking those away from state authority.”

Brecheen then drilled down on the federal debt liability every American shares.

He said the $35 trillion debt equates to $104,325 per person or $265,838 per household, which is “opening debt burden that [children being born today] will only pay off through a lower standard of living or what is a complete fiscal collapse if we don’t correct this thing.”

Brecheen said the U.S. is running a $2 trillion annual deficit, and “we’re spending in the red at $76,000 per second, and total spending is almost $190,000 per second. The speed of light is 186,000 miles per second. So if you take the word ‘miles’ and replace it with ‘dollars,’ we’re spending faster than the speed of light, $76,000 of which is debt spending.”

The Congressman noted that the gross national debt first eclipsed the $1 trillion mark in 1980, and that in the years since, “what we started seeing is this fallacy of foolhardy thinking,” which has resulted in a $35 trillion national debt “if we change nothing.” He says 10 years from now, the national debt will be $54 trillion, and by 2054 is projected to be $153 trillion.

“This is important, because at $35 trillion, our annual overspend of $2 trillion is two times what it took us 200-plus years to get to by 1980,” he said, claiming that runaway deficit spending is driving record indebtedness. He said deficit spending will be $2.9 trillion by 2034 and $7.3 trillion annually by 2054.

‘Destroying this country’

“It’s not a fight, truly, of Republican and Democrat anymore. It is the moderate-to-liberal thinking that is undermining both parties, it is destroying this country,” Brecheen said.

“That oughta show you that mainstay conservatism is not perceived as rational, but it’s the commonsense of the day, we have a chance. The hope is, if we’ll get convicted in our hearts over the problem, we can fix this thing before we run this thing off in the ditch.”

Brecheen then divvied up the current federal budget, explaining the difference between mandatory (automatic) spending and discretionary spending. Mandatory spending consists of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, interest on the U.S. debt, veterans benefits, welfare benefits, etc., which is 74% of the federal budget. Discretionary spending, which includes defense spending and anything else the government approves, is 26% of the budget.

He blames a shifting ideology for the spending increases during the past 50 years, as well as “this woke, sexual immorality revolution that is undermining that.” He also says Medicare is “functionally bankrupt.”

“Two weeks ago, I’m on the floor [of the House], I introduced a measure, an amendment to the appropriations bill, to cut arts and humanities — two different bills — back to 2019 spending levels,” Brecheen said of his efforts to rein in deficit spending. “I would go further, but we’ve got a Congress that won’t. Every time we (the Freedom Caucus) put those bills up last year, there’d be 80 to 120 of 435 members of the House of Representatives who’d vote ‘yes, let’s take that program back to 2019.’ And all 300 of the others would vote ‘no.’ Sadly, a hundred of them were Republicans — all the Democrats plus about 100 Republicans.

“So you’d think with this big of a problem, you can’t cut arts and humanities back to 2019? ‘Nope.’ It’s that madness of not abiding by the rule of law, that’s why we’re in the mess we’re in. Both Republicans and Democrats are guilty. That’s easy governing — promise people more and don’t make any sacrifice occur for that. That’s why we’re in the mess we’re in.”

“Before you can even address this,” an attendee told Brecheen, “you need to go through the Republican Party in Congress and sort out these deadbeat, corrupt people we have been sitting up there claiming they’re conservatives, on the Republican side, not even address the Democrats. Republicans got a lot to do first before this problem can be …” “That’s the hundred,” Brecheen interrupted, referring to Republicans who voted with Democrats.

Calling for sacrifices But Friday’s attendees blamed “freeloaders,” “illegals” and “pharmaceutical companies” for the nation’s economic problems.

Then Brecheen braced his constituents for what is required to begin to resolve the nation’s budget woes.

“I owe it to you as your representative to tell you: Get ready, buckle up, you’re going to have to sacrifice. If we’re going to fix these problems, we have to sacrifice. If we don’t want to face this head-on and sacrifice, then we’re going to our knees by force financially.

“We got to cut. We got to amputate some things. We got to send some programs back to the states if we’re going to solve this,” he said. “But my real concern is that’s too aggressive for people, and it’s not going to happen. We’re going to have to be like Greece, and we’re going to have to be like the prodigal son to go to our knees and we’re eating minimal, and the prosperity stolen from us as a country, and everybody wakes up and says, ‘Wait a minute. Maybe 200 years of conservative government that was seen as radical is the way to maintain a self-governing society’.”

While some might suggest increasing taxes, Brecheen said taxes are not the way.

When an attendee observed that there are companies that are not paying federal taxes, Brecheen countered with data that shows how corporate income tax receipts have increased and how the top 1% of individual taxpayers paid 42% of all income taxes. Brecheen claimed the top 50% of all earners paid 97% of all income taxes. Meanwhile, the bottom 50% of all earners “paid only 2.3% of all income taxes.”

He then quoted Ronald Reagan: “The reason why we have deficits, annual overspend, is not because we tax too little. The reason why we have deficits is because we spend too much.’