This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

My guest published a really thoughtful op-ad in the Washington Post entitled, Targeting This 2.8

trillion-dollar tax shelter could solve a big U.S. problem, which addresses both our federal

deficit and a big idea for a revenue source, which we're going to ask him about.

I am really pleased to welcome my guest, Scott Hodge. He is a tax and fiscal policy fellow

at Arnold Ventures and President Emeritus of the Tax Foundation, which has done

terrific work over the years trying to understand where we are and where we should get to.

Scott, welcome and thank you for joining me on Neutral.

Thank you very much.

Let's start with a big picture.

The latest numbers from the Congressional Budget Office show deficits topping $2 trillion for years to come with dead levels we've never seen outside of wartime.

When you look at that trajectory, how worried should Americans be?

Extremely worried, Mr. Speaker.

The bottom line is that the government is now spending $1.35 for every $1.00 that it collects in tax revenues. And as you mentioned,

that is the trajectory for as far as the eye can see. And I think some of the more worrying

elements of this is that so much of that spending is on autopilot through entitlement programs,

whether it's Social Security

or Medicare or Medicaid and other things.

But at the same time, the debt load is increasing the interest payments on that debt.

And I was looking at some of those Congressional Budget Office forecasts, and it's truly frightening how much that interest payments are increasing over time.

Currently, we are paying more in net interest on the debt than the size of our defense budget.

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