New York Representative Mike Lawler Talks Pressure On China

**SPEAKER_1** (0:02)
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**Kailey Leinz** (0:07)
And joining us now is Republican Congressman Mike Lawler of New York, who serves on both the House Foreign Affairs Committee and House Financial Services Committee and is joining us this evening live from Bloomberg's World Headquarters in New York City. Congressman, welcome back to Bloomberg. I'd like to begin, if we can, with the number that we saw yesterday. $40 trillion now in building is our national debt. The Treasury Secretary is obviously trying to take short-term steps to address the rising borrowing cost that that has brought with it. But what else needs to be done here? What's the responsibility of Congress to address that figure?

**Mike Lawler** (0:44)
Look, this is one of the biggest challenges facing our country. And anytime you actually try to act on reducing expenditures, of course, the politics begins. And we see that in my own race, where I'm being attacked consistently on the spending reductions that we made, rooting out waste, fraud and abuse. But the fact is that, you know, when we're at 40 trillion in debt, running $2 trillion plus deficits, paying a trillion dollars in interest, this is a crisis. And I think it's incumbent on Republicans and Democrats in Washington to get serious about it, not from a political standpoint, but from a governmental standpoint, and actually work to find ways to reduce expenditures. Look, our tax revenue is at an all time high. Democrats consistently argue that we need to increase taxes on the wealthiest. But the fact is that our revenue continues to hit all time highs under the current tax law.
And yet, expenses have gone up significantly. Under the Biden administration, you saw $5 trillion in new money being spent, which meant they had more borrowing, which meant that they had to print more money.
And fundamentally, that drove up inflation. We had a cumulative effect of 21% inflation over those four years. So we are working to turn the tide here. It's not going to be fixed overnight. But I think there are real challenges that we have to tackle, not just between now and November, but obviously over the next two years, as we really address the issue of our national debt. This is not sustainable, and I think most rational people acknowledge that.

**Kailey Leinz** (2:37)
Well, your point is well taken, Congressman. That debt did climb during the Biden administration, though we should point out the one big beautiful bill will add trillions to the deficit, according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office, as well, and we've seen the debt keep climbing since Trump has been back in office. Can I ask you to talk about where...

**Mike Lawler** (2:51)
But I would just point out, just on that point, I just want to point out one thing.
Revenue continues to hit all time highs. So if revenue is hitting all time highs, but the deficit grows or the debt grows, that means our expenses are outpacing the revenue. And that's where Congress needs to get serious about it.

**Kailey Leinz** (3:09)
What about Social Security and entitlement programs? Is that realistically what needs to be cut? How do you get a handle on that problem?

**Mike Lawler** (3:18)
It's not a function of cutting it. We want to secure these programs. Or reform it. And sustain them for the future. Obviously, Social Security and Medicare outlays are going to increase as the baby boomer generation reaches the age of retirement, which they have.
And the health needs of that population grows. So the question is, how do you actually address the revenue side of it? One of the things that Bill Cassidy has talked about is taking all new offshore oil leases and putting those funds directly into the Social Security Trust Fund, which would obviously give a new revenue stream to the trust fund and help sustain it. So we need to sit down in a bipartisan way. I'm part of Problem Solvers. I've been sitting down with my Democratic and Republican colleagues for months, and we have been talking precisely about this.
But it's going to require action in the next Congress in particular, because we've already seen if we do nothing, there is going to be an automatic reduction in benefits with Social Security in the next six years. And that I don't think anyone supports, certainly not me.

**Kailey Leinz** (4:32)
Yeah, and the clock is ticking in that direction very fast. Congressman, I'd like to ask you as well about another issue we've spent a lot of time talking about here on Bloomberg in recent days, not just the bond market and the debt, but the question around the correct policy for data centers. There has been massive bipartisan pushback, it seems, against data centers. You now have a Republican candidate for Senate in Michigan, Mike Rogers, calling for a one-year moratorium. We've obviously seen a moratorium put in place in your state of New York. Is that what your constituents are demanding right now?