Rand Paul

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, I object.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. I object.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 3761 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. PAUL. I ask unanimous consent that the debate be 4 minutes, equally divided.

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, the Federal Reserve pays both foreign and domestic banks to simply park their money in Fed accounts--in other words, to not loan money at all. Over the past 5 years, the Fed's big bank bailout amounts to over half a trillion dollars. This bailout causes the Fed to operate at a loss, which means the Fed cannot remit profits to the taxpayer as it normally does. According to the economist Judy Shelton, if these payments stopped, ``banks would [buy] Treasury Securities,'' and it would bring interest rates down. Some people say that this program is a floor to interest rates. My amendment ends these subsidies. Let's end the Fed's big bank bailout. Let's lower interest rates. Please vote for my amendment.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. I object.

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, somewhere off the coast of Venezuela a speed boat with 11 people on board is blown to smithereens. Vice President Vance announces that ``killing cartel members that poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military.'' When challenged that killing citizens without due process is a war crime, the Vice President's response was that he ``didn't give a shit.'' Sometimes, in fits of anger, loud voices will say they don't care about the niceties such as due process. They just want to kill bad guys. For a brief moment, all of us share that anger and may even embrace revenge or retribution. But over 20,000 people are murdered each year in the United States, and somehow we find a way to a dispassionate dispensation of justice that includes legal representation and a trial. Why? Because sometimes the accused is actually not guilty. Even with the best of care, even with the best of justice, sometimes we find out it is the wrong person. As passions subside, a civilized people should ask questions. To be clear, the people bombed to smithereens were guilty, right? If anyone gave a you-know-what about justice, perhaps those in charge of deciding whom to kill might let us know their names, present proof of their guilt, show evidence of their crimes. The administration has maintained that the people that they blew to smithereens were members of a gang, members of Tren de Aragua, and therefore narcoterrorists. Why? Because we say so. But certainly, then, if they know that they belong to a particular gang, then someone must surely know their names before they were blown to smithereens. Is it too much to ask to know the names of those we kill before we kill them, to know what evidence exists of their guilt? At the very least, the government should explain how the gang came to be labeled as ``terrorists.'' How did the people who you say are in a gang, how did they come to be labeled as a ``terrorist''? U.S. law defines a terrorist as someone who uses premeditated, politically motivated violence against noncombatants. Show us evidence of that. Show us evidence of their guilt. Show us evidence that they are terrorists, perhaps before we blow people to smithereens. Since the U.S. policy is now to blow people to smithereens if they are suspected of being in a terrorist gang, then maybe someone should take the time to explain the evidence of their terrorism. Critics of this whole terrorist-labeling charade, such as Matthew Petti at Reason, explained that, in practice, what we are doing in practice ``means that a `terrorist' is whoever the executive branch decides to label one.'' You are a terrorist because you are labeled one. You can be killed because you are called a terrorist. But where in all of this is some sort of evidence that you are guilty of something? While no law dictates such, once people are labeled as ``terrorists,'' they appear to be no longer eligible for any sort of due process--no, the blow-them-to-smithereens crowd, at this point, will loudly voice their opinion that people in international waters don't deserve due process. Vice President Vance asserts: There are people who are bringing--literal terrorists--who are bringing deadly drugs into our country. Which, of course, raises the question: Who labeled them as ``terrorists''? And what is the evidence of these specific people who had names before they were blown to smithereens? What is the evidence against them individually? What are their names? What, specifically, shows their membership and guilt? Were they armed at the time they were blown to smithereens? The blow-them-to-smithereens crowd also conveniently ignores the fact that death is, generally, not the penalty for drug smuggling. The mindless trolls that occupy much of the internet whine that such questions show weakness or commiseration with drug pushers who are killing our children, a ludicrous assertion to most sentient humans but one I fear that requires a response: International law and norms have always granted due process to individuals on the high seas not actively involved in combat. U.S. maritime law explains in detail the level of force and the escalation of force allowed in the interdiction of drugs. You realize we interdict hundreds of ships off the shore of Miami, off the Pacific coast, and we don't always blow them to smithereens. Why? Because some of them don't actually have drugs on them. Hundreds of ships are stopped daily, yearly. The blow-them-to-smithereens crowd might stop to ponder that a good percentage of these ships that we actually search turn out not to be drug smugglers. Coast Guard statistics show that one in four interdiction finds no drugs. So far, the administration has admitted to blowing up four boats suspected of drug smuggling. So there is a one-in-four chance, statistically speaking, that one of these boats may not have had any drugs on it. We will never know because they were blown to smithereens. We may never know the names of the people because they were blown to smithereens. We may never know whether they had arms because they were blown to smithereens. It seems someone should ask, if the U.S. policy is to blow up all suspected ships, should that policy really be extolled as the ``highest and best use of our military?'' What an insult to our military. Jake Romm puts the dilemma of whom to designate as a terrorist into sharp relief. Jake Romm writes: The hollowness and malleability of the term [terrorism] means that it can be applied to groups regardless of their actual conduct and regardless of their actual ideology. It admits only a circular definition . . . that a terrorist is someone who carries out terrorist acts, and a terrorist act is violence carried out by a terrorist. Conversely, if someone is killed, it is because they are a terrorist, because to be a terrorist means to be killable. It is a circular definition which no one ever bothers to say: Why are they a terrorist? What is their name? What are they guilty of? What have you accused them of? We say just say: You are a terrorist; therefore, you are killable. It devolves to madness. Can you imagine a doctrine in which we just blow up ships off of Miami and say ``whoops'' if they didn't have any drugs on board? Twenty-five percent of the ships that we board currently don't have any drugs on them. It is a mistake. And we allow it because it is a search, and typically it is a voluntary search. But we allow searches. But we don't kill every suspected boat off of Miami suspected of having drugs because 25 percent of them don't have any drugs. There is a shortage of independent legal scholars who argue that these strikes are legal. Even John Yoo, a former Deputy Assistant Attorney General under George Bush who infamously offered the Bush administration's legal justification for waterboarding, has criticized the administration's justification for the strikes, saying: There has to be a line between crime and war. We can't just consider anything that harms the country to be a matter for the military. Because that could potentially include every crime. John Duffy, a retired Navy captain, eloquently summarizes our current moment: A republic that allows its leaders to kill without law, to wage war without strategy, and to deploy troops without limit is a republic in deep peril. Congress will not stop it. The courts will not stop it. That leaves those sworn not to a man, but to the Constitution [to stop this]. Congress must not allow the executive branch to become judge, jury, and executioner. Often, people will say: What about the Barbary pirates? What about the Barbary pirates? Jefferson went after them; it should be OK. But Jefferson understood that the Framers' intention was that the President defer offensive war to Congress, to authorization. So while there was always a justification and still is a justification for violent defensive maneuvers to protect your shipping, there was never an authorization for offensive unless approved. This is why President Jefferson, when faced with the belligerence of the Barbary pirates in 1801, recognized that he was ``unauthorized by the Constitution'' only with the authorization of Congress ``to go beyond the line of defense.'' Jefferson wanted the authority to act defensively against the pirates, but he respected the intentional checks placed on the Executive within the Constitution. Only after Congress had passed the Act for the Protection of Commerce and Seamen of the United States Against the Tripolitan Cruisers in February 1802 did he change it from defensive maneuvers to protect the ships to offensive maneuvers. Our history is prescient. If the Trump administration wants to use military power, they should seek authorization from Congress. There is a difference between war and peace. There is a difference in the rules of engagement. There has to be. Our police don't shoot people on sight. We have a process. Even off of the coast, we have a process. We have longstanding maritime laws that we obey as well as every other civilized nation in the world obeys. We board ships after announcing who we are and that we are going to board the ship. There is an escalation if there are weapons fired, if there is a reason where the Coast Guard can escalate, but we don't just blow ships to smithereens. The vote before us today offers every Member of this body an opportunity to reverse the decades-long abdication of this critical responsibility, of leaving this to the executive branch. Our Founding Fathers said Congress shall authorize war. The Executive is not authorized to do this. I encourage my colleagues to support this resolution.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Madam President, I object.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, it is good to see that fake outrage is alive and well in the Senate. We have Democrats coming to the floor worried about the government being shut down, although they are the ones that have shut the government down. Ironically, every Democrat in this body voted for the exact same spending levels that are in this continuing resolution. Last December, these Biden spending levels were put forward by Democrats. Now, you have every Democrat who voted for the spending levels now voting against them without any rhyme or reason or explanation. So, really, to come to the floor and complain about the government shutting down a program when the Senator has every ability to vote in a few minutes to open the government back up is quite fake outrage. I object.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Reserving the right to object, there is nothing better in politics than to fake outrage. ``I am so outraged my program is going to go away.'' But you can vote this afternoon at 5 o'clock to extend your program. Instead of all the hot air, why don't you come to the floor and tell us you are actually going to vote to keep the government open and your program will be extended. You have a chance. Let's see how you vote this afternoon. I object.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. PAUL. Madam President, this spring, just a few days before Congress enacted the last continuing resolution, which is the spending plan--this resolution that would extend the Biden-era spending levels-- President Trump said in a speech that he wanted to do something that hadn't been done in over 20 years: balance the budget. I fully commend him for that, and I am very supportive of trying to get there. The difficulty is that the spending levels that we voted on in March and the spending levels we will vote on again this week don't balance the budget and don't come anywhere close. These are the spending levels that Biden put in place in December before he left office. Most Republicans were critical and condemnatory. Many conservative Republicans, like myself, voted against these spending levels because they were such that they would lead to a $2 trillion deficit. Well, that is still true. This year, the deficit will be right around $2 trillion, and it is because we have continued the Biden spending levels. To balance the budget, Congress needs a much stronger response than the legislation being presented. Critics of excessive Federal spending have rightly argued that Congress should return to prepandemic levels of spending. When the pandemic came in, spending went through the roof. The economy was shut down. They wrote free checks to all Americans. The problem is that all that was borrowed. There was no money. There was no rainy day fund. Now, there is a way to tackle the budget and to try to balance the budget over time. I have a Penny Plan budget that I have been introducing for several years. We have not gotten any Democrat support, but we have gotten over half of the Republicans to support it. My Penny Plan would balance over about a 5-year period and would return spending almost immediately to what would be a prepandemic level. Six months ago, though, when the current continuing resolution was passed, Republicans were told that we were just clearing the decks, that this was going to be temporary, and that we would then be bold and present budgets that would cut spending. Once President Trump was in office, with a Republican majority in the Senate and the House, we would finally address spending levels. And wouldn't you know it-- getting serious about a balanced budget is not on the agenda this week. There really isn't any serious change. What we are talking about is a continuing resolution that continues the Biden spending levels. These spending levels this year have led to almost $2 trillion in deficit and are projected next year to lead to $2.1 trillion in deficit. In addition, we will also be voting on something called an automatic continuing resolution proposal. This is the idea that, rather than having the government shut down, it would just continue spending the same amount of money. In theory, I like the concept; I just don't really like continuing the Biden-era spending levels because they never balance--not over 5 years; not over 10 years; really, never. The lines never cross. So, sure, you would keep the government open, but you would keep the government open and spend the same amount we do currently, which is out of control and not defensible. So keeping the government open while continuing $2 trillion deficits hardly seems desirable. Rather than the relentless fury to tackle the debt, which is what we were promised with a Republican majority, the powers that be have once again waved the white flag of surrender by failing to present the American people with legislation that would make the cuts necessary to balance the budget. Under the proposed continuing resolution or the automatic continuing resolution we will vote on tonight, the budget never balances. Even if you take it out as far as the eye can see, revenue will never meet expenditures. So it is just not something I can support, and I don't think it is a conservative proposal. Spending has gotten so out of control that this freeze, even over a decade, doesn't put a dent in the deficit. Presidents of both parties pay lipservice to the idea that the national debt must be addressed. Yet it gets worse under both parties. People ask me: Whose fault is it--Republicans or Democrats? And I just say: Yes, it is both parties. The right wants unlimited spending for the military, and the left wants unlimited spending for welfare. So you have guns and butter. You scratch my back, and I will scratch yours, and it all goes up. Now, the reverse compromise could happen. You could actually cut a little bit from the military side and a little bit from the welfare side, and really everybody would get a little bit of a haircut across the board. You could balance your budget that way. But you can't exclude or exempt huge swaths of government spending. You have to look at all spending, and if you do, the budget can be balanced by a 6-percent cut across the board, excluding Social Security. I am proud of the President for what he has tried to do, though. Unlike past Presidents, Donald Trump has created the Department of Government Efficiency to identify and eliminate waste. DOGE has found billions of dollars of waste. Americans were rightfully appalled when they were told that your government has been spending $2 million on sex changes in Guatemala. I mean, it sounds like a bad punch line that, you know, you might hear from late night comics--$2 million on sex changes in Guatemala. Your government was spending that money, and the DOGE people came in and said: We shouldn't do it. I have been talking about these things for years, but finally we have an administration that is interested in it. There is $25,000 for an LGBT opera in Colombia and nearly $1 million to study the microaggressions among obese Latinx, whatever that means. But it is just crazy wasted money. I mean, it would be one thing if it was from even a surplus of crazy wasted money, but we are doing this, and we have to borrow the money from China to send to all these crazy projects around the world. This doesn't even count the $200 billion we have sent to Ukraine. That is all borrowed as well. This summer, President Trump sent Congress a special message identifying $9.4 billion in rescissions, and Congress, for the first time in a long time, did the right thing: We voted for and passed this rescissions package to cut $9 billion. I supported, as I always do, cutting this foreign aid. With a deficit of $2 trillion a year, though, $9 billion is a drop in the bucket. We have to do more. Congress has to do more. As much as I appreciate this, the power of the purse needs to be exerted more by Congress. We have let so many of these decisionmaking powers devolve to the President. The Founders, I think, would be appalled with Congress. They would be appalled with what Congress has become. Congress exerts no powers. It gives away its powers and does not seek a restoration of its powers. Right now, we are living under emergency rule, where the President has declared emergencies on 160 countries and has declared that he has the right to declare whatever he wants through import taxes. Well, our Founding Fathers would be appalled. The Constitution is very clear: Taxes originate in Congress, and even more specifically, taxes originate in the House of Representatives. Unfortunately, Congress has been all too happy to wither in the shadow of the Presidency that grows larger with each successive administration. Whether it be Republican or Democrat, the Presidency grows larger and stronger; to wit, the continuing resolution that we are considering--the spending plan that we are considering--maintains the Biden spending levels. If you will remember, there was an election. Do you remember the Republicans all said: Bidenomics and Bidenflation and Biden spending-- we are against all that. That was kind of what the election was decided on, and now you have a Republican in the White House, Republicans in the Senate, and Republicans in the House, and we are living under the Biden spending levels that they complained about. The great irony is, the Democrats have now switched. The Democrats supported the Biden spending levels under President Biden. Now there is a President Trump and the spending levels are exactly the same, and all the Democrats are voting no. It makes no sense at all. It is really ironic that every Democrat Senator supported the spending levels just 9 months ago that we are voting on now. So when they say ``continuing resolution,'' we are continuing the same spending levels that we started with in December of last year, and every Democrat voted for them. Likewise, in December of last year, conservative Republicans voted against the Biden spending levels, and now they are poised to vote for the Biden spending levels. Both parties have completely flip-flopped to the opposite side of the same issue that hasn't changed. Congress has truly entered the upside-down world. To add insult to irony, the CR before us adds the foreign aid dollars we canceled 2 months ago back into the baseline spending. So we, finally, for the first time and as long as I can remember, had a vote to get rid of this crazy foreign aid, this foreign welfare. We did the right thing. We got rid of $9 billion. There is still another 40-some- odd billion dollars in the budget. We got rid of $9 billion. By voting on this continuing resolution today, they are sticking the foreign aid back in. The foreign aid will be back part of the baseline again. We have to go through the whole thing again. It is almost as if DOGE never existed, as if DOGE never found all this stuff, criticized it, shamed Congress into doing the right thing, and we cut the foreign aid. It is going back in. So we are going to do a CR that doesn't lessen the foreign aid spending. It is going to have the same level of foreign aid spending we had last year. I am not going to fall for this trick, and conservatives shouldn't either. As Jefferson tells us, our job is to be eternally vigilant. What the country needs is a bipartisan effort in Congress to reclaim the power of the purse and to do what is necessary to eliminate duplicative spending, wasteful spending, and spend only what we can afford. We have some programs here that were begun 40 years ago, authorized. People said: We are going to solve the problem of homelessness, 40 years ago. The programs have been reauthorized, and we just continue living on and on. Then, every year or so, someone goes: Wow, we have a homeless problem. Why don't we get another government program to build homes? They did this in California recently. They spent $27 billion over a several-year period. Do you know what the average unit cost for the affordable housing was? A million dollars a unit. That is the history of government, the incompetence of government; that they are going to build houses for poor people, and it turned out costing them a million dollars a unit to build houses for poor people. Just 2 weeks ago, a majority of the Republican caucus actually did vote for my Six Penny Plan. The Penny Plan, as I have said, is to cut spending across the board. It is how we would actually finally balance the budget. It is this compromise that everything needs a little bit of a haircut. Unfortunately, we have gotten no Democrat support for it. We got a little over half the caucus, but probably a little over a third-- 30, 40 percent of the caucus--is still believing that we should just keep spending levels as they are or continue to increase spending. So we are not quite there yet. There is not quite enough fear of where we are. But $37 trillion in debt is not something to be sneezed at. We are adding in $2 trillion a year. The interest alone is about $1 trillion. Some people have made the argument that a country can no longer remain strong when its interest payments on its debt exceed its actual spending to defend itself, the military spending. So I think we are really at a tipping point. Everybody comes to us for money. Everybody has got their hand out. Everybody wants more out of us. From Israel to Israel's neighbors, everybody has got their hand out. Everybody wants more money from us. And I think it makes no sense for us to be borrowing it from China to give it to other countries, no matter how good the request is. The plans that have been presented before us--we had two plans presented: a Republican plan and a Democrat plan. Which one adds debt? Yes, both of them. The Republican plan will add $2 trillion in debt next year if we continue spending at the same level. The Democrat plan said we want another trillion on top of that, so it would be a $3 trillion deficit next year. So neither party is serious about this. But there is an alternative, when we get enough Republicans, and that is the Penny Plan that I have been offering for several years. It balances it by gradually reducing spending just a little bit each year. But by supporting yet another continuing resolution at the current spending levels, Republicans are essentially signing off on the fiscal policies of the Biden administration--policies Republicans once rightly opposed. Just a short time ago, virtually every Republican was saying the Biden spending levels were too high. But given that this continuing resolution will add another $2 trillion deficit next year, this plan, at the Biden level, should be a nonstarter. However the legislation before us today is being presented as a solution to dysfunction, but in reality, it is just papering over the cracks. This measure is not a reversal of the status quo; it is the status quo. It does nothing to address our debt. It does nothing to divert our trajectory that is bankrupting this Nation. This is not some theoretical debate; this is math. This is what will happen. This is what happened last year and is going to happen again--$2 trillion in additional debt. We bring in about $4.7 trillion. We spend $6.7 trillion. We are spending $2 trillion more than comes in. This isn't like an emergency. This isn't even the excuse of the pandemic. This is routine business, routine status quo, $2 trillion in deficit every year. If we stay on this path, we keep spending like we did during the pandemic or under the Biden administration, we are guaranteeing a future of higher inflation and crippling debt for our children and grandchildren. We are running out of ways to fix this. We are running out of time. The CBO projects that within the next 10 years, mandatory spending-- this is all the welfare programs--and interest alone will exceed revenue. We are getting pretty close to that now. Think about that. We vote on a budget that is not mandatory spending. Military spending is considered to be discretionary, and then there is a bunch of discretionary welfare. Military is a little bit more than the welfare. That is the budget we vote on. Then you have mandatory spending, which is Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, and then interest on the debt. That, essentially, is equal to what comes in. The taxes that are coming in equal the mandatory spending. So when we actually do produce a budget, which isn't very often, the stuff we are spending is almost entirely borrowed. If you look at the discretionary spending budget, it is about $1.8, $1.9 trillion. That is the debt. That is what the debt is. The debt is, essentially, equivalent to the discretionary spending. The mandatory programs, the welfare programs, have gotten so big, and they grow with such abundance each year. We have added in young, healthy, able-bodied people to these programs that really shouldn't be on welfare. You have added these people in, and it is consuming all of your taxes. So, really, everything else is being borrowed. Entitlement programs and interest will consume every single dollar within a year or two that comes in, in tax revenue. Imagine if you were running your household that way: no money left for food, clothing, shelter, unless you take out a loan every single year forever. That is what we are doing. You really can't live that way. You can borrow if you want to borrow to buy a house, but the bank holds the house. But you don't borrow money to pay rent for your apartment. You don't borrow money to pay for your groceries. You have to actually earn that money and have enough for your daily living expenses. We are to the point where we are borrowing for the daily living expenses of government. My amendment that I have offered to this would take the automatic renewal that prevents us from shutting down--take the automatic renewal and put in the Penny Plan numbers so what you would actually have is not running the government at the same levels, at the Biden levels; you would actually reduce spending by 6 percent. I am fine to make it automatic. I am fine to let it kick in and go on so we don't shut the government down, and we avoid the chaos and the discomfort of having the government shut down. But we shouldn't keep spending the same amount of money. That would be like abdicating our duty just to spend the same amount. But if we were to use my Penny Plan budget, we would be returning to prepandemic spending levels, a significant cut that would put us on the path to balancing our budget within 5 years. The government, though, has lost sight--lost sight--of its priorities. The American people are the ones paying the price. The big spenders don't tell you the truth. They don't tell you that it is all borrowed. They don't tell you that you are being ripped off by inflation. They don't tell you that well, gosh, we are going to give you all this stuff, but it has a cost. Really, nothing really is free in life. There is really not any possibility of getting something for nothing. What you get from government through borrowed money you pay for through inflated prices. The inflation of the Biden years didn't go away. Over the last 3 or 4 years in the grocery store, a lot of the meat and the different items in the grocery store went up 20 percent. When they say inflation is slowing down, that means we are just not adding more to it. But if you don't make 20 percent more than you made 4 years ago, you are being ripped off. You are being ripped off by inflation. It wasn't that long ago that my colleagues, at least on this side of the aisle, stood united in opposition to this fiscal recklessness. It wasn't that long ago that we drew a line in the sand on debt and the debt ceiling; that we demanded spending caps; that we said we wouldn't mortgage our children's future to fund today's political convenience. Now, some seem content to roll over and lock in the very policies that we ran against. I won't do that, and I won't urge my colleagues to do that either. We can't claim to be fiscal conservatives while voting for more and more debt. We can't claim to be this great opposition to the Biden spending levels and then vote the Biden spending levels in. We can't claim to not like deficit spending and then vote for spending that will inevitably lead to another $2 trillion in debt next year. This country can't afford to write another blank check. We can't afford to lock in the fiscal mistakes of the past. We need real reform. We need it now. We need to return to the principles of limited, constitutional government. If we obeyed the Constitution--most of the nonsense, most of the spending that goes on up here really isn't authorized under the Constitution. If we return to the Constitution, the principles of limited government, responsible budgeting, and economic freedom, we would have a balanced budget again. We need to start today.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Madam President, I object.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a budget that balances over 5 years. My budget, the Six Penny Plan, the Six Penny Plan budget, cuts 6 percent of all spending to rebalance in just 5 years. I am able to introduce this budget because neither Republicans nor Democrats introduced a budget this year. So we are running a $7 trillion government without a budget this year. So I think it is important that we have at least some debate and vote on a budget. Most Republicans say they are for a balanced budget amendment. Most of them have voted for it at some point in time. Yet most of the budgets and most of the spending that go through here seem to be adding to the debt, not canceling it out. Since I was elected, Congress has passed a budget less than half of the time. For almost five decades, Congress has passed all required annual appropriations bills only four times. So four times in 50 years has Congress actually gone through and individually passed the appropriations bills. As a consequence, the looting of the American taxpayer continues. By promising yet another so-called clean continuing resolution, Republicans are doubling down on embracing what they once considered to be reckless spending levels. Today, I propose a clear path back towards fiscal responsibility. I urge the Senate to adopt my Six Penny Plan that will balance the Federal budget. This year, the United States will spend $6.7 trillion while bringing in about $4.7 trillion. That is $2 trillion more being spent than what is coming in. A deficit of this magnitude should be concerning enough even on its own merits. But to add insult to injury, Congress passed a budget just 5 months ago which set a spending cap of almost $6 trillion for the year. So 5 months ago, Congress did actually pass a budget-- halfway through the year we were already in--to spend $6 trillion this year. Turns out, though, we have spent $6.6 trillion. So we couldn't even get it right 6 months ago when the vast majority of Republicans voted for a budget that said they were going to spend $6 trillion in a year that was half over, and now they have spent $6.6 trillion. Next year, it is going to be even worse. The budget that was passed in the spring said we would spend $6.3 trillion next year, but it turns out it is going to be $7.2 trillion next year. What is going on here? We keep passing budgets. We keep saying we are going to get better. We keep saying the bills we are passing are making the deficit less. Yet the deficit keeps getting worse. So even when Congress passes a budget, they seem to immediately renege on the deal they just passed. The numbers in the budget end up not being of consequence because the spending goes on unabated. This week, Congress will likely vote on locking in spending levels. The spending levels will be the same spending levels that Republicans criticized as the Biden spending levels last December. So when there was a Democrat in the White House, when President Biden was there, all the Republicans were unified in saying ``We despise the Biden spending levels. We are against spending in deficit and deficit spending. We are against all of that''--until the Republicans got in charge, and 3 months later, they voted for the exact same levels. The continuing resolution from March of this year is the exact same levels as the Biden spending levels. What are we going to vote for in a couple of days here? The Biden spending levels again. What does that lead to? Two trillion dollars in deficit. So every time we vote for a continuing resolution, for continuing the spending at the same level, we are voting for a level of spending that is $2 trillion short of what comes in. According to the Congressional Budget Office, enacting a yearlong CR--continuing resolution--will result in blowing through next year's spending target by nearly $1 trillion. So the target that was passed last spring was 6.3, but the spending is actually going to be 7.2. How can you be off a trillion dollars? How can you with a straight face go home and say: Oh, well, we were just off a trillion. And this year, we don't have a budget because--I don't know--maybe our math was so bad last year, we decided not to do it. But the deficit next year is going to be $2.1 trillion. It is getting worse, not better. Next year's deficit will be $100 billion more than the deficit this year. It was not that long ago that Republicans were castigating the Biden administration and saying they were reckless. Now we are doing the same thing. It was not that long ago that Republicans argued to the American people that Biden's overspending inevitably was causing inflation; it was to blame for the rise in the cost of goods. Anybody remember Bidenomics? Anybody remember Biden inflation? It was accurate because it was based on debt, and debt causes inflation. When the Federal Reserves buys the debt and monetizes the debt, that recreates inflation. But the same thing is happening. Nothing has changed. A new party in charge, and the same spending and the same debt. It wasn't that long ago that conservatives were staunchly opposed to raising the debt ceiling, and only the unholy alliance between Democrats and Big Government Republicans would get the spending bills through, would get the debt ceiling through. But now it has evaporated. Virtually the entire Republican Party now supports this debt. On an inauspicious day, March 15 of this year, the Republican continuing resolution was signed into law. On the Ides of March, Republicans took ownership of the Biden spending levels. The Biden spending levels are now Republican spending levels. To make matters worse, this summer, Republicans voted to raise the debt ceiling by $5 trillion. We have never ever voted to raise the debt ceiling that much. It used to be the conservative line that we held the line and said: We are not doing that or, if we are going to raise the debt ceiling, we are going to do it in a small amount for a short period of time in order that we would discuss this again and again and again until we get it right. But Republicans now own the spending problem. Republicans now own the debt expansion. Republicans must rediscover our principles of fiscal responsibility. Our country's future depends on it. Our national debt now stands at $37 trillion and grows with each passing second. If you have ever seen the usdebtclock.org, the website, the numbers are spinning literally out of control. To put this debt in perspective, every American household is on the hook for over $238,000 to cover Uncle Sam's reckless spending spree. To put it bluntly, the state of our Nation's fiscal health is bleak. The government now spends over a trillion dollars just on interest. This is more than we spend on our national defense. We should heed this fact as a warning. As Hoover Institution Historian Niall Ferguson points out, ``Any great power that spends more on debt service than on defense will not stay great for very long.'' We must act now if America is to, once again, be a rising nation, but we are currently on a path toward decline. If we continue down this unsustainable path, American families will be forced to deal with even higher inflation, confiscatory tax rates, rising interest, and a weak economy. It will be harder to find a job and provide for your family because the deals made in the Halls of Congress always stick the taxpayers with the bill. You either are going to have to pay for it through taxes--the debt will always be paid either through taxes or through inflation and high prices at the grocery store. Government spending and fiscal malfeasance have not only weakened every American family's purchasing power, but our national economy is weaker as well. At $37 trillion, the Federal debt is nearly twice what it was 10 years ago. The Federal debt is now larger than the entire economy. Our economy is about $29 trillion; the debt is at $37 trillion or, to put it in more tangible terms, the U.S. debt is large enough to fill 34 NFL stadiums with $100 bills. Government spending is so out of control that even if every bank account in the United States were emptied to pay down our debt, it would only cover just about half of what Washington owes. So if everybody's bank account was liquidated in the whole country, it only would pay for half of the debt. This is an amazing problem. This is an extraordinary problem. Something must be done. America is in a historic state of financial disarray. Right after the end of World War II, the world's most expensive war, our accumulated debt was 18 percent larger than the entire economy. We are now 20 percent. So we have now exceeded even the debt of World War II. America's leading financial minds have already sounded the alarm. The Chairman of the Federal Reserve said that Federal spending is on an unsustainable path, and it is past time for Congress to correct it. The CEO of JPMorgan Chase, America's largest bank, warned that the Federal Government must reduce its deficits before lenders finally say enough and stop loaning the government money. Just this week, the Director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office suggested that the U.S. economy is weakening. The people who rank our credit have downgraded the U.S. credit rating. As interest payments on the national debt crowd out the rest of the government's budget, entitlement cuts, inflation, and eventually default on the debt are what lie ahead for the American economy. Unfortunately, a debt crisis will not just stop with our economy. A threat to our financial security is also a threat to our national security. We must remember that the surest path to peace is leaving no doubt in your adversary's mind about your ability to respond with aggression. With increasingly dubious financial health and a larger share of resources devoted to interest payments, the United States is sending a message of weakness. Yet Congress has reportedly chosen to ignore the deficit, raise the debt ceiling, and continue to fund foreign wars. Instead of budgeting, Congress decided to kick the difficult decisions down the road. Unfortunately, continuing spending at the Biden administration levels is a path that is not sustainable and will further our fiscal decay with $2 trillion annual deficits as far as the eye can see. Since entering the Senate, I have introduced several proposals to lead us back to a balanced Federal budget. In 2017, I introduced a budget that would freeze spending. In 2017, if you simply froze spending--you didn't cut one penny from anything, but you froze spending for 5 years--we would have balanced in 5 years just by freezing spending. I introduced a budget a few years later, and it would have taken one penny--1 percent across the board would balance in 5 years. A few years later, I introduced it again; it was a two-penny plan. Then came the pandemic. We spent so much money. We closed the economy down. We did such terrible things to the country, and now it is a six-penny plan. It takes a 6-percent cut. How can we possibly survive a 6-percent cut? I will tell you how I present it to people. I have people come in. They always have something that seems to be of value for people. I will give you an example. The folks that come in and they are looking for Alzheimer's research. I have family members with Alzheimer's. I have a great deal of sympathy. I look at them and tell them where we are, and I tell them we are a rich country; we ought to have some government money researching Alzheimer's. And I say: You know, we are $2 trillion short this year. If we cut everybody by 6 percent, we will be able to balance the budget. So the Alzheimer's research, we spend $100 million on. If next year we spend $94 million and we did that for everyone, we could balance the budget. Interestingly, people who are emotionally involved with this--moms, dads, grandparents with Alzheimer's--look at me and say: You know what? For the good of the country, we can do that. Yet if you talk to people around here, they go: Oh, you hate old people. I don't hate old people. I aspire to be an old person. The thing is, you have to have a little bit of a haircut for every program up here. If you just cut one program, you will never get through it. You have to cut everything all across the board, not because you don't like the recipients, not because you don't want to help people, but because you don't want to destroy our country. For just six pennies on the dollar, we can reverse this dismal trajectory. In just 5 years, we can restore trust in the U.S. dollar, the U.S. economy, and steer the U.S. Government away from this fiscal cliff. History will remember who had the courage to stand up to make these hard choices. History will remember those who chose not to leave this enormous bill to their children. Vote yes on this plan. Vote yes on restoring fiscal sanity. Vote yes on securing the future for our country. Motion to Proceed Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 159, S. Con. Res. 22.

Mr. PAUL. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, on August 16, 2025, at 11:01 p.m., Danny Lynn Renshaw, of Bowling Green, KY, and formerly of Madisonville, KY, passed away peacefully after a brave battle with lung cancer. The story he leaves behind is one of faith, love, perseverance, and generosity--an enduring legacy that will never be forgotten. I met Danny when he reached out to offer support for my first run for the U.S. Senate in 2010. As the owner of the Renshaw Automotive Group, Danny loaned us a tour bus custom-wrapped with my campaign logo. I traveled the State with my family, meeting people in every county. It was a family affair for the Renshaws as well, with Danny's son-in-law Shawn Parker driving the bus and his son Ryan, daughter Deborah, and grandson Jagger joining us at campaign stops. My wife, our sons, and I had a great time with the Renshaw family as we traveled Kentucky together. Danny was born December 9, 1946, in Nortonville, KY, the son of Ernest and Ethel Renshaw. From his earliest days, grit and determination defined his character. Those qualities carried him through his service to his country in the U.S. Army, where he rose to the rank of sergeant, trained as a paratrooper, and became an expert marksman while serving during the Vietnam war. He came home with the same strength and discipline he showed in uniform, ready to build a life of purpose. The greatest chapter of Danny's life began when he married the love of his life, Victoria Ann ``Vickie'' Renshaw. While Danny had returned home from Vietnam uninjured, he soon lost his leg in a tragic coal mining accident early in their marriage. Despite being a young father with a life-changing injury, Danny showed the strength and positive mindset that defined the trajectory of his life. He began selling cars to support his young family, a humble start to an extraordinary business achievement that can only happen in America. With hard work, determination, and vision, Danny and Vickie built a company that included eight dealerships across Kentucky, known as the Renshaw Automotive Group. Danny's career in the automotive industry spanned more than five decades, during which he became a respected leader and mentor. His influence reached far beyond his own dealerships; he served as Kentucky's NADA Director, chaired the Kentucky Automobile Dealers Association, sat on the NADA Board of Directors, and in 1999 was named Kentucky's TIME Dealer of the Year. For countless men and women in the industry, Danny was more than a businessman; he was a teacher, encourager, and exemplified what a leader should be. Danny and Vickie's love story spanned more than 50 years, and together, they raised three children: Tommy, Ryan, and Deborah. They built a home filled with laughter, love, and faith. For Danny, family was everything; he cherished every moment as a husband, father, and eventually ``Pop'' to his grandchildren and great-grandson. He found his deepest joy in watching them grow and thrive, always cheering them on with unwavering pride. What truly set Danny apart was not just what he built, but how he gave. Following the loss of Vickie in 2020, Danny helped establish the Vickie Renshaw Foundation in her honor, ensuring her legacy of compassion would live on. He poured his time, resources, and heart into causes that mattered most: supporting children and families, education, the arts, and community programs across the region. He also served faithfully on the boards of Western Kentucky University Foundation, First United Bank, and Big Brothers Big Sisters, among others. His generosity was not simply financial; it was deeply personal. Danny had a way of making everyone he met feel valued, welcome, and cared for. Friends and colleagues often describe Danny as an icon in the automotive industry, but also as a man whose kindness left a lasting imprint. Whether it was a family member, a lifelong friend, a customer walking onto a lot, or even a stranger in need, Danny had a way of making everyone feel seen and encouraged. His life was proof that true success is measured not only by what you accomplish, but by the lives you impact along the way. He cherished every visit, every meal and loved to light up the room by singing his favorite song, ``Johnny B. Goode.'' Though his journey here is complete, Danny's legacy continues--in the dealerships he built, the organizations he supported, and most of all, in the hearts of his family and friends who were shaped by his love.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, diplomacy cannot be all stick and no carrot. There is no question that the recent U.S. strikes dealt significant damage to Iran's nuclear program. Yet it is still unknown whether the use of military force will induce the Iranians to come to the table. Instead, our attack may lead to the opposite effect--hardening the regime's opposition to U.S. demands. From the perspective of Iran's leader Ayatollah Khamenei, submitting to U.S. demands now would be perceived by Iranians as surrender. It is unknown yet whether the combined U.S. and Israeli bombing of Iran's nuclear facilities will lead to an end to their nuclear program or a sprint to the completion of a weapon. In fact, our attack on Iran may turn out to be a disaster. It is unknown. It may turn out that it could be the final catalyst for Tehran to double down on an effort to secure a nuclear deterrent to ensure that their country cannot be attacked with impunity again. Now, we hear from the same voices in the establishment who were adamant that war would be a panacea that the imposition of more sanctions is the solution. The Washington establishment doesn't seem to be familiar with Einstein's famous definition of insanity. Sanctions have been consistently ineffective at altering Iran's behavior in a manner favorable to U.S. interests. Repeatedly, as we put sanctions on, there has been no change in Iran's behavior. Sanctions are often counterproductive. Sanctions immiserate the civilian population to such an extent that they rally around the regime in opposition to foreign interference. Some in this body maintain that sanctions will prompt the Iranian people to rise up and overthrow the despotic regime that rules over them. That would be great, but history suggests otherwise. Instead, we may stoke the flames of nationalism by directing the ire of the people away from the Ayatollah and toward the United States. Additionally, this resolution's purpose--to urge the United Kingdom, France, and Germany to invoke sanctions--is rich given that it was the United States that unilaterally withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. So it is a bit inconsistent for us to be arguing that Europe should by all means apply and adhere to the JCPOA which we no longer participate in. If the United States is no longer a member of the JCPOA, what gives Washington the right to advise those who remain in it to invoke certain mechanisms within the agreement? Washington's determination to worsen relations with Iran risks further military confrontation and diverts finite U.S. resources from other more pressing domestic and international concerns. That is why I am offering a substitute amendment to S. Res. 81 that makes clear the futility of sanctions and the needless risk of further escalation. My amendment leaves room for President Trump to fund a diplomatic solution. It resolves that the United States supports the deescalation of tensions between the United States and Iran, affirms that stable relations with Iran are in the United States' national interest, seeks a peaceful resolution to concerns regarding Iran's nuclear program, and urges the Trump administration to prioritize diplomacy with Iran over further war. Prudent diplomacy requires tact and respect. Instead of adopting the same tried-and-failed policies of the past, let us today have the courage to forge a new path. I urge my colleagues to support my amendment. Therefore, I ask the Senator to modify his request to include my amendments to the resolution and preamble, which are at the desk.

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, I object.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, in deciding whether to vote for the ``Big, Not So Beautiful Bill,'' I have asked a very specific question: Will the deficit be more or less next year? The answer, without question, is: This bill will grow the deficit. The Federal Government has fancy formulas and hundreds of wonky accountants who inform us of their projections over 10 years, but you often can't trust these projections. In an excellent piece written by the Foundation for Economic Education, entitled ``The CBO's Projections Are Worse Than Useless,'' Eric Schuler writes: Long-term analysis and language is commonplace in U.S. national politics, but it achieves no useful outcome. It confuses far more than it clarifies. It does not provide accurate estimates of long-term results. It does not improve the average voter's understanding of policy effects. And it gives politicians a means to claim they are being fiscally responsible without actually exercising any prudence whatsoever. Sometimes the predictions are off because a new Congress is elected and changes the law. Eric Schuler writes that, for any projection of a 10-year budget to be accurate, the Congressional Budget Office ``has to assume the law won't change for ten years, even as most of the politicians that make the laws risk being replaced [every] two years-- and all of them advocate for changes of one stripe or another . . .'' Schuler states what few in Washington will admit: Congress has a knack for starting any proposed cuts in the later years, while letting spending run wild in the immediate future. Sometimes these predictions are off by $1 trillion or so because the economy grew more slowly or more quickly than anticipated. Bruce Thompson, a former Senate aide and Assistant Secretary of the Treasury writes that the Congressional Budget Office ``miscalculated the deficit [last year] by $1 trillion.'' So in deciding whether to vote for any big, monstrous bill, it helps to ask the right question. To me, the most pertinent question is, How will the bill affect the deficit in the next year? Currently, our deficit is estimated to be a little under $2 trillion this year. What will happen to the debt in 2026 if this bill passes? Well, in using the math most favorable to the supporters of the bill, referred to as a policy baseline, the deficit in 2026 will still be $270 billion more than this year. So even using the math, even using the formulas that the supporters of the bill like, the deficit will grow by $270 billion next year. That is just not good if you profess to be fiscally conservative. Why will the deficit grow next year? Well, even if you argue that the 2017 tax cuts don't need to be counted in the calculation at all, the new tax cuts add up to $234 billion to the debt next year. In addition, the ``Big, Not So Beautiful Bill'' adds new spending of over $500 billion--military, border, agricultural subsidies, et cetera. That spending is front-loaded and will be spent in the first 4 years of the 10-year window. Legislative spending is one of the few items in the bill that is exact. It isn't estimated. If they say they will spend $500 billion, they are going to spend $500 billion in all of the first few years. So, in order not to add to the deficit, the ``BBB,'' the ``Big, Not So Beautiful Bill,'' has to have corresponding spending cuts to counter all the new spending. Unfortunately, the spending cuts are back-loaded to the final 5 years of the 10-year window when several tax cuts expire and the spending increases are finished. In addition, elections occur every 2 years and could easily wipe out any perceived savings that might occur in the later years. The only real certainty in this budget drama are the budget years coming in the immediate future. It is the next year or two that are the only things that are actually of any certainty. So, if we analyze this bill from that perspective, we discover that the bill increases the debt by $500 billion in the first 5 years. This is not the CBO's projection that Republicans have not liked. This is the projection they are using that says the debt will add $500 billion in the first 5 years. They say, somehow, miraculously, in the last 5 years, it gets to $500 billion in savings. So it is a $1 trillion shift from year 5 to year 10. The CBO scores it differently, not as encouragingly, and says it adds over $3 trillion in debt. So which is it? Does this bill save $500 billion over 10, or does it add $3 trillion over 10? The truth is, even for a person with a magic crystal ball, it is anybody's guess, which brings us back to, maybe we have to judge the effects of the ``Big, Not So Beautiful Bill'' by looking at what happens to the debt next year. Supporters of the bill admit it adds $270 billion to the debt next year. That is the only thing we know for certain. We don't know what will happen in year 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, or 10; but we know that next year, this bill will grow the deficit by $270 billion. In addition, the bill increases the debt ceiling by $5 trillion. What does that mean? That is an admission that they know they aren't controlling the deficit; that they know the ensuing years will add trillions more. So we are adding $2 trillion this year, but they are anticipating--the authors of the bill are anticipating--adding more than $2 trillion next year. That doesn't sound at all conservative to me, and that is why I am a no.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, the Constitution is clear: Congress, not the President, has the authority to declare war. The Founders were unanimous in proclaiming that the power to declare war belonged exclusively to Congress. James Madison, the father of the Constitution, said that the executive branch was the branch most prone to war; therefore, the Constitution, ``with studied care, vested that power in the legislature.'' Madison would further state that ``in no part of the Constitution is more wisdom to be found than in the clause which confides the question of war and peace to the legislature, and not to the executive [branch].'' Hamilton, who didn't always agree with Madison or Jefferson, wrote that ``the Legislature can alone declare war, can alone . . . transfer the nation from a state of Peace to a state of War,'' and ``if the Legislature have a right to make war on the one hand--it is on the other [hand] the duty of the Executive to preserve Peace til war is declared.'' Madison and Hamilton had very different visions of Executive power. Yet they both agreed that it was vitally important to entrust the power to declare war to Congress, not the executive branch. George Washington remarked that ``the Constitution vests the power of declaring war with Congress; therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject, and authorized such a measure.'' No offensive expedition without congressional approval. St. George Tucker, a Revolutionary War-era law professor, wrote in 1803 of how our Constitution diverged from the English tradition. He wrote: In England the right of making war is in the King. . . . With us, the representatives of the people, have the right to decide this important question. It is without question that Congress neither deliberated nor authorized the recent offensive military action against Iran. Each of us has taken an oath to uphold the Constitution. Deferring the decision as to when, where, and why the country goes to war to any President is a dereliction of duty on the part of Congress. To commit America's military to fight wars on behalf of the Nation is the most consequential and humbling responsibility that Congress is entrusted with. If we are to ask our young men and women to fight and potentially give their lives, then we in this body can at least muster the courage to debate if American military intervention is warranted. Washington's record of involvement in the Greater Middle East is particularly abysmal, with dozens of campaigns costing thousands of American lives and trillions of dollars. Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Pakistan, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, and now Iran--all countries in the region that the United States has bombed or is bombing. In each case, the hawks in Washington were adamant that U.S. military intervention would lead to a glorious future and great peace. Instead, after tragically losing thousands of lives and trillions of dollars, the United States is not in a better strategic position thanks to our interventions. After September 11, a generation of brave Americans answered the call to serve, many enduring multiple deployments in the region. Some 7,000 U.S. servicemembers paid the ultimate sacrifice in the War on Terror. Tens of thousands more carry with them the scars of war: living with missing limbs, shrapnel, nerve damage, brain injuries, burns, scars. Some live with paralysis and are confined to wheelchairs. The mental wounds of war are also present as we remember the more than 30,000 veterans who have committed suicide since Washington's misguided project to remake the Middle East. While our soldiers carry out their missions with honor, the Washington establishment consistently fails them. In almost all cases, our interventions were counterproductive, making us less safe and less prosperous. As the initial jubilation wears off from those who clamor for war, the regional situation remains precarious, and American servicemembers remain in danger. Many advocates for war, giving voice to their real feelings, have loudly opposed the current cease-fire. Those arguing against a cease-fire give a callous testimony, insensitive to the cruelties of war. Some 40,000 U.S. troops are scattered throughout the Middle East as we speak--some on large, established bases, others on isolated outposts. It is impossible to ensure all of these locations have adequate air and missile defense capabilities. Our troop presence in the region is therefore a significant liability, allowing Iran and its proxies an opportunity to target Americans, which they otherwise would not have. Yet the Washington foreign policy establishment seems content to allow our servicemembers to serve as sitting ducks. Should American soldiers get wounded or, God forbid, killed in a retaliatory strike, the calls for war emanating from Washington will surely be deafening. History is replete with examples of leaders who, in their hubris, thought they could shape the fate of nations, but we are subsequently proven wrong as events ended up controlling them. Our own country, sadly, experienced this during Vietnam. The needless tragedy of that war in which 58,000 Americans paid the ultimate sacrifice led Congress to pass the War Powers Resolution we debate today. Congress intended to ensure a President would never again unilaterally plunge the American people into war without the people's representatives in Congress debating the issue. We owe it to all Americans who have worn the uniform to honor that humbling responsibility. Moreover, despite the tactical success of our strikes, they may end up proving to be a strategic failure. It is unclear if this intervention will fully curtail Iran's nuclear aspirations or, in fact, whether the Iranians may well conclude to double down on their efforts to obtain a nuclear weapon. At this time, it is unknown. The lesson Tehran and other unsavory regimes around the world may learn is that the only way to deter a strike is to maintain a nuclear deterrent. Pandora's box has been opened, and the consequences remain to be seen. Congress must now focus its efforts on deescalation and preventing the call for regime change, the consequences of which, if applied to Iran, risk the total destabilization of the Middle East. The American people are sick and tired of sending their children to fight and die in war zones on the other side of the world with no tangible U.S. interests at stake. Abdicating our constitutional responsibility by allowing the executive branch to unilaterally introduce U.S. troops into wars is an affront to the Constitution and to the American people. Today's vote offers every Member of this body an opportunity to stand up for the Constitution, to stand up for American servicemembers, and to stand up for America's strategic interests. I will vote in support of this resolution, and I urge my colleagues to do so as well.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, you know, there was an old-fashioned conservative principle that believed that less taxes were better than more taxes; that if you taxed something, you got less of it, so that if you place a new tax on trade, you will get less trade. There was also this idea that you didn't do taxation without representation. That idea goes not only back to our American Revolution, it goes back to the English civil war as well. It goes back to probably Magna Carta. I mean, for hundreds of years the English were arguing of the supremacy of Parliament, that Parliament would be able to have the power over the King. So when we were leading up to the Revolution, the cry from James Otis was, ``Taxation without representation is tyranny.'' These were the words of James Otis, but they still ring true today. It should not come as a surprise that in a country founded on a tax revolt, one person is not allowed to raise taxes. Our Founding Fathers saw this and said: No, we want to make sure that the authority of taxation begins not only in Congress, that it actually originates in the House, the body closest to the people. Our Constitution forbids taxes from being enacted without the approval of Congress, and yet here we are. An emergency has been declared, as the Senator from Virginia remarked, everywhere. There is an emergency everywhere. Sounds like an emergency everywhere is really an emergency nowhere. But despite the constitutional restraints or constraints on executive power, Americans have now been ordered to pay higher taxes in the form of tariffs but without the consent of Congress. The tariffs we discuss today are global tariffs. Just about every country in the world is subjected to at least a 10-percent tariff, to say nothing of the dozens of countries whose imports will be taxed at a much higher rate. Congress didn't debate these tariffs. Congress didn't vote to enact these tariffs. The tariffs are simply imposed by Presidential fiat, by proclamation. Government by one person who assumes all power by asserting a so- called emergency is the antithesis of constitutional government. It was Montesquieu that our Founding Fathers looked to in setting up the separation of powers. And Montesquieu said that when you unite the legislative power with the executive power in the body of one person, that no liberty can exist. They worried about this. They fretted about it. They worried about having too much power with the President, and so they severely constricted the power of the Presidency. They said the President couldn't take us to war; only Congress could. They said the President couldn't spend money; only Congress could. They said the President couldn't tax people; only Congress could. These were the very bedrock and still are the very bedrock of our constitutional principles. Yet, people--particularly on my side--are looking away and saying: Oh, whatever. We will just let the President do whatever. Look, I supported President Trump. I still support President Trump on many things. But I am not for a country run by emergencies. Even if the person was doing what I wanted and was, you know, making every day my birthday, I would not be for that unless we deliberated upon that. There are constitutional processes that are incredibly important. The Constitution doesn't allow the President of the United States to be the sole decider. Even the President must abide by the proper limits of Executive power. Thankfully, our Constitution does more than merely hope that our Chief Executive will remain within the confines of the Constitution; our Constitution explicitly limits the power of the Presidency. Our Founders led a rebellion against a King precisely over this. They went to great lengths to circumscribe and limit the power of the Presidency. Devoted as they were to the preservation of individual liberty, the Founders divided power among three branches of government. But more importantly, those three branches were to check and balance each other to prevent one branch from accumulating too much power. Madison wrote in the Federalist Papers that the Constitution was to pit ambition against ambition. The natural ambition of men and women to accumulate power was to be checked by other branches of people who would say: You can't have that power. It is our power. That pitting of ambition back and forth was to constrain government. It was to constrain government from running away and power from being run away with one person. The Founding Fathers empowered Congress with tools to ensure that the liberties of the people would not be threatened by one-person rule. The Founders would not be surprised that the Executive would attempt to aggrandize power at the expense of the legislature. They would have expected it. Indeed, they did expect it. But they would be surprised-- the Founders would be shocked that Congress would voluntarily and recklessly and fecklessly give up their power to the Presidency, to submit to emergency rule. The Founders would not have expected the House of Representatives to become so craven as to refuse to even allow a vote on ending the emergency. The law says that the vote we will have is mandatory. It is privileged. The Senate will adhere to the law. The House will not have a vote. The House, in its haste to give away its power to tax, actually passed a rule to prevent a mandatory vote on ending the emergencies. They prevent it because the rule says that days no longer exist. They declared that legislative days will not exist despite the legislature continuing to meet each day. The House has essentially ruled that days are not days and they are not to be counted as days until such time as the House again agrees to allow days to be counted as days. Does that sound absurd? Absolutely. It is absurd. It is craven. It is cowardice at its best, and it is dishonest because a rule of the House is preventing a law from being obeyed. I didn't know we could pass a rule to prevent a law from being obeyed. When the emergency powers were granted to the President in 1966, the Emergencies Act was meant to constrain the Republic. We were already worried about too many emergencies. Many on my side have actually cosponsored bills that say emergencies should automatically end unless affirmatively approved by Congress. Many of those people now are looking the other way. They are looking the other way and saying: Well, it is our President now. I had a reform of the Emergencies Act under the previous President, a Democrat. I had the same bill under a Republican. This should not be a partisan issue. The Founders would not have expected the upper chamber, the Senate, to let the novel use of a statute traditionally used to sanction adversaries to become used for tariffs to tax American people and to let it go unchallenged. This is not constitutionalism; this is cowardice. Our system of government cannot work when Congress abdicates its legislative authority. Madison said we would pit ambition against ambition, but what if we have Presidential ambition and we have congressional acquiescence? we have congressional timidity? we have congressional nonentity, choosing to become a nonentity, not participate, do whatever you want? It is a recipe for disaster. Madison and those of the revolutionary generation would have expected Members of Congress to jealously guard their authority from the imperial pretensions of the Chief Executive. To endorse governance by emergency rule is to fail to live up to what the Constitution demands of us, and failure to do our constitutional duty is an invitation to further emergency rule. I know some Republicans like the idea of taxing trade, but what if there is a next President who is a Democrat who says: By emergency rule, I decree there will be no gasoline-using cars. We will have only electric cars. That is what we are preparing ourselves for. Every distortion of the checks and balances of powers gets worse. Every time a party changes hands, they say: Well, you guys did this, so we are going to leapfrog and do this. And it goes back and forth until the individual citizen knows nothing other than the loss of liberty. Even President Trump didn't try to argue that this law called IEEPA, which is normally used for sanctions--he didn't act upon it in his first term. He makes a claim today, though, likely because the appropriate trade laws on the books require months to be implemented, and he can't wait. And the Republicans go along, and they say: Emergency? No problem. Constitution? What? Constitution? Forget about it. Members of his political party will stand by his assertion. Some may cast their actions today as an exercise of party loyalty. Some may even be praised by Pennsylvania Avenue. But for those who care to listen closely, within that praise will be heard a touch of disdain. It is no secret that Congress lacks the fortitude to stand up for its prerogatives, and this is bipartisan. Presidents in both parties routinely exceed their power because they know that Congress has weakened itself to such an extent that it cannot challenge and will not challenge Executive overreach. Congress delegates its legislative authority to the President so that the laws we live under are, in reality, written by bureaucrats who the people do not know, will never meet, and cannot hold accountable through elections. But I don't want to let off both parties on this. The powers that have been given to the President over trade have been given to the President by Congress over many decades. Congress acquiesced. Congress said: Here. We don't want to deal with it. You can have it. Congress today can scarcely be bothered to even consider individual appropriations bills. By consistently waiting until the last second to pass a massive funding bill and threaten a government shutdown, the leadership deprives Congress of what Madison called its most complete and effectual weapon: the power of the purse. We just put it all in one bill, and then they say: If you don't for it, you are for shutting the government down. You can't shut the government down, so you have to vote for the massive bill, which includes more pork than you can probably ever imagine. Congress has--unique among the three branches--unilaterally disarmed and demonstrated itself unable and unwilling to check the Executive. If Americans are to live under this emergency rule, it will not be because the President sought too much power; it will be because Congress let it happen. If Americans are to live in a country where the President alone decides what is to be taxed, at what rate, and for how long, it will be because Congress is too feeble to stand up for the interests and bank accounts of the people. If Americans live in a country where their elected representatives in the legislature cannot or will not speak for them, it will be because those representatives silenced themselves. They gave in. They did not stand up and do their duty. We can show the people that the constitutional principle of the separation of powers still means something and that we can successfully challenge the Presidential attempt to raise taxes without the consent of Congress. Tariffs are taxes, plain and simple. Tariffs don't punish foreign governments; they punish American families. When we tax imports, we raise the price of everything from groceries, to smartphones, to washing machines, to just about every conceivable product. Voters in the last election indicated they were fed up with high prices. Every time Americans went to the grocery store, they were reminded that inflation and putting food on their family's table was more difficult and left them with less money for other necessities. Many pundits say the 2024 election hinged on promises to reduce inflation and lower taxes. Does it make any sense to impose a tax on imports that will make all Americans worse off? Shouldn't we learn from our success? We should ask ourselves a fundamental question: Is trade good? Well, trade is simply capitalism. Trade never occurs unless you want a product more than you want your money. Has anyone ever made a trade, a voluntary trade, where you thought you were being ripped off? No. You buy stuff only because you think you are making a good deal. Those who say that, oh, no, we are being ripped off--it is a fallacy. It asserts that one of the parties must necessarily lose or be taken advantage of. The argument belies a fundamental misunderstanding of trade. By definition, every voluntary trade is mutually beneficial. Trade is good. That isn't an opinion; it is a fact. For at least the last 50 years, as trade rises, so does wealth. And people say the middle class has gotten smaller? Slightly but only because it moved to the upper class. These tariffs will make Americans poorer, and they will make the defenders of those tariffs pay. Tariffs bring us closer to the day when the people are ruled by a czar of industrial policy. When that day comes, we will wish we had defended the Constitution when we still had the power to do so. We cannot afford to stand idly by while the constitutional principle of the separation of powers is eviscerated. Legislators who stand aside and abdicate the power to tax will one day rue the accumulation of power in the office of one person. I stand against this emergency, I stand against these tariffs, and I stand against shredding the Constitution. I have no animus towards the President. I voted for him and support his administration. I come to the floor today not because I want to but because I am compelled to. I love my country and the principles upon which it is founded. The oath I took upon taking this office is to the Constitution of the United States and not to any person or faction. I want to preserve the divisions of power that protect us and our children from the rule of one person. That is why I will today vote to end this emergency. I will vote to reclaim the taxation power of Congress, where the Constitution properly places it, and I urge the Members of my party to do the same. I yield the floor.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. I ask consent to waive the mandatory quorum call with respect to the Hoekstra nomination.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, we are gathered here to talk about the budget. We are going to be voting on a budget resolution shortly, and I am concerned. I am concerned that there is so much enthusiasm among conservatives and Republicans for cutting waste and cutting fraud and ``quit spending $2 million on sex changes in Guatemala and $3 million on girl-centric climate change in Brazil, $4.8 million on social media influencers in Ukraine.'' I am excited by eliminating all of that waste. I have been calling for it for years. But I will tell you what worries me. What worries me is that so many things in Washington are smoke and mirrors. On the one hand, it appears as if all of this great savings is happening, but on the other hand, the resolution before us will increase the debt by $5 trillion. So which is it? Are we cutting spending or are we expanding the debt? If we expand the debt at $5 trillion, that will be an expansion of the debt equal to or exceeding everything that happened in the Biden years. Now, which is it? I thought we had an election. I thought we had an election. And the other side was complaining loudly that, oh, my goodness, there is going to be too much cutting in spending, and our side is saying, no, no, no. I am looking at the numbers. The budget resolution is going to add $5 trillion over about a 2-year period. So they are going to add more than $2 trillion a year to the debt. In what world is that conservative? They say there is a difference between the parties, and yet, when you look at the numbers, when you look at the fact that this budget resolution is going to borrow $5 trillion, you scratch your head and say: What is up here? Is there somebody not really being honest with us? They are going to borrow $5 trillion, and yet they will say: Well, the spending is coming down, and we have put these numbers in the budget that will reduce spending. If so, why are we borrowing $5 trillion? The reason they are going to ask the Republicans and the Democrats-- but it will be mostly Republicans voting for this debt--the reason they are asking for it is because they are anticipating that is what they will need. They are also anticipating that--you know, it is kind of embarrassing, really, to talk about debt. It is extremely embarrassing for Republicans, who say they are conservative, to be adding $5 trillion in debt and voting for it, so they don't want to do it very often. Let's try to spread it out over a long time. Let's try to get through the 2026 election. Let's try to get to 2027 before we have to have this embarrassment brought back in front of us. But the embarrassment and the shame are coming much quicker. We are going to get to the end of September 30--that is the end of the fiscal year for our Federal Government--and the American people at that time will be told--hopefully someone in the media notices this--that the deficit for this year will be over $2 trillion. The estimates are that there will be about $2.2 trillion. And we are going to borrow $5 trillion. Now, some would argue: Yeah, but we need to give them a chance. We need to give them a chance because the spending number actually looks like they might reduce spending. But here is the problem. The spending number is lower, but this bill also adds $325 billion in new spending: $150 billion for the military- industrial complex and another $175 billion for the border. But that is new money. How much money did we spend last year? A little over $7 trillion. But that is not enough, according to all the people here on my side today that are going to vote for this budget. They want more than last year. Well, if last year was $7.1 trillion, that must mean they are going to want $300 billion more than that. But the number in the bill says--no-- $6.5 trillion. So they are saying we are going to spend less. You know what, I have seen the way this place operates, and I don't trust either party. Why? Because I have seen the deficit and the debt grow and triple since I have been here. It is $36 trillion. Now, I voted against every last penny of it. I voted against the spending bills. I have voted to balance the budget. I have introduced budgets that balance over 5 years. But you know the one thing that would happen even if I had my way and I could introduce and my budget would be accepted? There would have to be some debt accumulation. So what I am offering today is, let's accumulate some debt, let's raise the debt ceiling. I have never voted for this before, but I am willing to vote for 3 months, about $500 billion, to raise the debt ceiling. Why? Because it has to happen. Why don't I want to give them $5 trillion? Because then you are just turning your back, and they are going to do whatever they always do. What does the swamp always do? Take your money, borrow money. Spend and borrow. It continues unabated. But if you wanted to keep your Congress on a leash, if you wanted to have leverage, if you wanted to have leverage to say: Well, what if you are not being honest with me? What if in 3 months the deficit is over $2 trillion, and what if in 3 months the spending levels aren't $6.5 trillion but, in actuality, $7.4 trillion? How would we then rebuke you? How would we stop you? How would we stop the spending? Well, the way we would stop the spending is by not giving you any more borrowing. So what I am proposing today is an amendment that will raise the debt ceiling by $500 billion. To me, that is an extraordinary amount of money, but your government spends it so darn fast that that is about 3 months' worth of spending. But there is nothing conservative about raising the debt ceiling $5 trillion. It boggles the mind to try to comprehend how anyone who is self-describing themselves as conservative would vote to increase the debt by $5 trillion. It makes utterly no sense. But it also is free rein for the spenders because they have got $5 trillion they can spend. In recent years, on occasion, they haven't even put a number in there. Probably the only reason we are getting a number is because the rules of the budget require a number. But what they have been doing, both parties, is they have been just saying: Well, why don't we just borrow money for 2 years or 3 years. And many people argue--many on the other side of the aisle will say: We shouldn't even have these votes at all. Why have a debt ceiling at all? Let's just let it spin out of control. Has anybody ever seen the Debt Clock? Go to the debtclock.org and watch the number spinning wildly out of control. Now, some will say deficits don't matter. This was the Cheney family. Dick Cheney famously said deficits don't matter. But the thing is, they really do because you have to pay interest on the debt. We are paying about a trillion dollars in interest. So the largest item in our spending now--bigger than our military--is actually the interest. Over the next 10 years, we are going to pay about $14 trillion in interest. I think it is actually probably worse than that. That is what the estimates are now. But it is literally out of control. You say to yourself: How would we rein in spending? You have to look at everything. Every item we spend money on has to be looked at. You have to look across the board at everything. But what we have is the current administration says we are not going to look at Social Security, despite what the other side says about Social Security. Nothing is going to happen to Social Security. They are not going to fix it. They are not going to make it better. They are not going to reduce anything. Social Security is going to be untouched. So is Medicare. But then there are reports and complaints saying: Well, we shouldn't touch Medicaid either. And then people say: Food stamps-- we can't touch food stamps. Well, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and food stamps comprise all the money that comes into our government. They are about $5 trillion worth. That is about what we pay in taxes. So the government brings in about $5 trillion and spends $7 trillion. That is about a $2 trillion overdraft. We are $2 trillion in the hole every year, and we are up to about $36 trillion, $37 trillion total. But how would we actually get there if you are taking off the table Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, and food stamps? Those four items are about $5 trillion--pretty close to it. So if you take all the entitlements off the table, what are you left with? People love and they get excited about the terrible foreign aid. I do too. I think it is the lowest hanging fruit. It is the most egregious, the spending. It is the easiest to cut. But I forced a vote on that 2 weeks ago, and we got no Democratic votes. In fact, I don't think there is a Democrat in Congress who will vote to cut 1 penny. I would like to do that sometime: introduce a bill to cut a penny or cut a dollar to see if they would. Let's cut $1 from the $2 million that they spend doing sex-change surgery in Guatemala with U.S. tax dollars. Will the Democrats support a bill to cut $1? Probably not. Even if they admitted the program was egregious or horrible or out of normalcy, they would probably insist the money be spent somewhere else. And that is sort of the debate we have over time. I have a bill called Bonuses for Cost-Cutters, which says that if you are in charge of a budget for government--let's say you are in charge of $12 million at the Department of Energy. If you save $1 million, you would actually get a personal bonus for the Federal employee as an incentive. When I put this forward, the main complaint that usually comes from across the aisle is they are OK with giving Federal workers bonuses for saving money, but they insist that the money not go back to the Treasury. This is the big debate that is going on also. What Elon Musk has done and DOGE has done is absolutely commendable, and we need more of it. The whole place is rotten. It needs to be shaken up, and we need to look for waste. But there is going to be another debate: Is that waste going to come back, and are we going to vote on it? Are we going to codify it? Are we going to make it real by lowering our numbers? But the only way we would have any leverage on either party is by only giving them a little taste of the money. Don't give them so much money they are wallowing in it and it comes out as fast as the Federal Reserve can print it. Give them about 3 months' worth. Let's see how they do in 3 months. If the spending totals that are in the bill come forward in 3 months and those are the spending totals that Congress approves, I would be pretty satisfied with that. In fact, I have told them the bill, on large--I am for continuing the tax cuts. I am for keeping the tax cuts permanent. I voted for them in 2017. I am for reducing spending, which, on the surface, some of the numbers look better, but I am just not for borrowing $5 trillion. If we are doing a good job, if we are doing a better job, why are we borrowing $5 trillion? Something doesn't add up. Something is fishy. If we are going to do such a good job and if we have transformed government and if we are different than the other side of the aisle and we really are for less spending and less debt, why are we borrowing more money than we have ever borrowed at one time in the history of the country? This will set a record. I believe $5 trillion will be the most that has ever been borrowed in one fell swoop. This will be a vote--and I think an ignominious one--in which professed conservatives stand up, stand forward, and vote for more debt than Congress has ever voted for at one period of time. It just disappoints me. I am so disappointed. But I am also disappointed because I think that within a few months, when the American people see this--particularly when Republicans at home see: Oh, my goodness, I heard all this good news about cutting foreign aid and cutting all this crazy spending around the world, but the deficit is still $2 trillion this year. And then they are going to scratch their heads. And maybe they give the Republicans another 6 months and look. And then they are going to find that another trillion has been borrowed in another 6 months. And they are going to find we are 2 years into a new Republican administration, with a Republican majority in the Senate and a Republican majority in the House, and we are going to borrow $5 trillion. Something doesn't add up here. Someone needs to stand up and say something. Someone needs to give conservatives, if we have conservatives in this body, an alternative. That is what my amendment will be. My amendment will be an alternative. Instead of borrowing $5 trillion, sticking our head in the sand, and saying, ``No, please be nice to us, and do what you promised and spend less money,'' no, we give them 3 months, and we say: Prove to us that you will, for the first time, adhere to your word. And it isn't just a couple of individual people. This is the history of the institution. Occasionally, through the last several decades, there have been people who have come forward, and they have put forth rules. It was Gramm-Rudman-Hollings. There were different rules that said: You have to pay as you go. So if somebody brought up $300 billion in new spending, you would have to cut $300 billion from somewhere else. But do you know what has happened? These things have been evaded time and time again. Why are people like me cynical of the process? Why do people like me not believe them when they say they are going to cut spending? Because they always go back on their word. They exempt themselves from rules they create. Gramm-Rudman-Hollings, pay-as-you-go would have been effective, but it has been evaded by Congress 60, 70 times now. So I say: Trust but verify. I say: Trust. Accept your colleagues if they say they are really going to do this. But give them 3 months for the borrowing. Don't give them 2 years for the borrowing. Don't give 5 trillion. Don't put yourself on record. Today, if this is passed, or tomorrow morning early, if this is passed, Republicans who vote for this will be on record as being more fiscally liberal than their counterparts. They will vote to borrow more money than the Democrats have ever borrowed. So there really is a disconnect here. Something is not as it appears. There is a smoke and mirrors. There is this great enthusiasm across the land for what is happening. I share that. I share President Trump's desire to balance the budget. I am pleased with his Cabinet. I am superpleased with having Elon Musk and DOGE and these young people looking for waste. I am for all of that and more. But if it is going to be reflected in something, we have to borrow less. If we are still borrowing the same amount, maybe it isn't real. Maybe we are just talking about things, and we are not actually doing them. It is hard to cut spending. Everybody wants something. Everybody wants something from government. But there is no such thing as something for nothing. It has to come from somewhere. Most people know this in their daily lives. If you work, you get something for work, and you feel good about yourself because you worked for something. You can't simply just hand out money to people. You can't print out money like it grows on trees. But, I can tell you, there is an absolute historical record of abuse by both parties. But what saddens me, in particular for Republicans, is Republicans will go on record today to increase the debt more than the Democrats ever had. The new world's record for accumulation of debt, the new world record for expanding debt in our country will belong to the Republican Party with this. This is a sad day. I will vote against this bill and object to it unless we get rid of this enormous amount of borrowing. If we get rid of the $5 trillion and adopt my amendment, I will vote for the bill. The bill would borrow, if my amendment were passed, $500 billion. Is it enough? No. We would have to do it again. We would come back in 3 months. But this is the idea of trust but verify. If the promises are real and if the big spenders in both parties are doing a good job, when they come back and prove to us that they have actually done something they have never done in the past--they have changed their ways, and they are not going to keep adding massive debts, year after year--then we give them another 3 months. If they do a great job, maybe we give them 6 months. But we don't give big spenders in Washington who have a terrible history with the debt--we don't give them no leash at all, no controls at all, $5 trillion here. Spend it however you want. We don't do that, at least we profess not to on our side. So my amendment will give all Members of the body a chance to say: Do you want continued oversight of your government by looking at the debt ceiling periodically or do you just want to wash your hands? I say if we wash our hands, we speed up the demise of our country. I think now is an inflection point. The stock market in the last 2 days lost over $6 trillion. We live in perilous times, and I think the people who just keep going on their merry way saying: We will just do the same thing, and we will tell the people it is a little different than the other side, and maybe they will vote for us this time; maybe they won't--I don't think it is going to happen. I think the people are frustrated. I think the people are annoyed. I think the people are frankly worried who are trying to save or getting closer to retirement or looking at their retirement nest egg and saying: Oh, my goodness, look at what has happened to us. Where are we going? Part of that message is an indictment of tariffs, and I think millions of investors think tariffs are a bad idea. But part of it is an indictment over our massive accumulation of debt, the fact that we are spending $7 trillion and bringing in $5 trillion. I hope the body will consider my amendment. Maybe I will be shocked. Maybe we will get enough votes from both sides of the aisle to actually have a shorter leash and have more perspective and more concern and oversight for what our spending would be. So I recommend a ``yes'' vote on my amendment, which will change the debt ceiling from $5 trillion to $500 billion.