Rand Paul

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, at a time when we are asking post offices and people around our country to suffer the loss of their local post office, I think the very least we can do is show we are willing to give up some of the post offices around here. We have seven post offices in the Capitol. We have a post office in almost every building. I am asking that we have one on the House side and one on the Senate side. If we are asking people to suffer the loss of their post offices in their States, I think the very least we can do is do without a few post offices here, and I hope my colleagues will support this amendment.

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous to call up amendment No. 2027.

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to not offer my amendment No. 2026, and I yield back.

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, at a time when America's infrastructure is crumbling, at a time when the Postal Service is losing $4 billion a year, does it make sense to send $2 billion to Egypt? Does it make sense to borrow money from China to send it to Egypt? At a time when American citizens are being prosecuted in Egypt, at a time when American citizens are having international warrants sworn out on their arrests by Egypt, does it make sense to send $2 billion to Egypt? Last week I met with a young prodemocracy worker from Egypt. She is afraid to return home. She is afraid she will never see her children again. She is afraid of the cage they will put her in to prosecute her for political crimes. She fears that the Egyptian freedom movement will die in its infancy. So I ask--for as long as prodemocracy workers are being prosecuted, American and Egyptian--I ask unanimous consent to call up amendment No. 2023 and that it be voted on.

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to call up amendment No. 2028.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 2025.

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

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, it is a Federal crime for anyone but the U.S. Postal Service to use a mailbox. The United States is the only country in the world that grants a mailbox monopoly. You can purchase your mailbox, you can install it, you can fix it, but you do not truly own it because you do not control what goes in your mailbox. If someone vandalizes your mailbox, you are responsible for it. You repair it. But you cannot decide what goes in it. If you put something in a mailbox without the permission of the U.S. Postal Service, if your child puts a birthday invitation in a mailbox, it can be a $5,000 fine. If an organization puts something in a mailbox other than through the Postal Service, it is a $10,000 fine. My amendment would grant individual owners of mailboxes the right to make decisions about their mailboxes. Adopting this amendment would restore individual mailbox choice. So I am for mailbox choice, and I hope the body is. It seems to me a fundamentally American concept to control access to your own mailbox. I urge adoption of this amendment.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, since I have been referred to, may I interject with a question?

Mr. PAUL. Could I interject with a----

Mr. PAUL. Will the Senator yield for a question? Since I am being characterized, I would think I would be allowed a response.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Reserving the right to object, the Post Office is losing $4 billion a year, and I sympathize. But at the same time we are losing $4 billion, we are sending $2 billion to Egypt. We have problems in our country and we don't have the money to send to Egypt, so I would say it is relevant. It is relevant whether, when we have limited resources, we send $2 billion to Egypt, or whether we try to fix the problems we have at home. I would say bring some of that money home and that might help us fix the Post Office.

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, Egypt currently gets $2 billion from our country from the U.S. taxpayer. My question is, should we be sending $2 billion a year to Egypt when they seek to continue to prosecute American citizens. Recently, President Obama's administration freed up that money and said Egypt is pursuing democratic aims, so we freed up the $2 billion. How did Egypt respond to this? Egypt basically thumbed their nose at us. Egypt said we are now issuing international warrants to get American citizens, extradite them, take them back to Egypt for a political show trial. So we give money to a country that insults us. I think this should end. I think this deserves 15 minutes of Senate time to discuss whether America has money to be sending to Egypt when we have 12 million people unemployed in this country, and whether we have needs here at home that need to be met before we send $2 billion to Egypt which turns around and insults us by prosecuting American citizens. I respectfully object and seek a vote on this amendment that would end their aid if they do not end the prosecution of American citizens.

Mr. PAUL. I continue my objection.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, I rise today to speak to an amendment that would end aid to Egypt until they end the prosecution of our U.S. citizens. I offered this amendment earlier this spring when Egypt was detaining our citizens--these prodemocracy workers--and was not letting them leave the country. Since then, they have let them leave the country but sort of in an insulting fashion in the sense they have let them leave when we paid, basically, ransom. We had to pay about $5 million in ransom--$300,000 per person--to let these people leave Egypt. So they came home, but Egypt still could only get its aid if the administration certified they were pro democracy. Within days, Secretary Clinton did release the aid and said they were achieving their democratic goals. I wrote a letter to Secretary Clinton asking her not to do this because the prosecutions still go on. These American citizens who were allowed to leave the country had to pay $300,000 in bail but they also had to sign a statement saying they were coming back for the trial. Everybody said, well, I doubt they are ever going back to Egypt for these show trials. But it gets worse. It turns out in December of last year, President Obama signed an Executive order--this is Order No. 13524--that gives Interpol, the international police organization, immunity in our country. We also have an extradition treaty with Egypt, meaning if you are accused of a crime in Egypt, we can send you back. The danger is whether these prodemocracy workers are safe in the United States. We have Interpol agents in the United States who now have immunity and we have an extradition treaty with Egypt. There are definitely problems with allowing this to go on. This is an indication to me that maybe Egypt is not pursuing democratic goals, and that certifying them as a democratic country is perhaps not in our best interest, and maybe sending nearly $2 billion of taxpayer money to Egypt, which continues to prosecute our citizens, is not a good idea. Let me give an example of what Interpol is doing. Interpol recently took a Saudi journalist from Malaysia and sent him back to Saudi Arabia. Do you know what the crime was? He was accused of blasphemy. He was accused of the religious crime of apostasy. Do you know what the penalty in Saudi Arabia for blasphemy is? The death penalty. So we are now using an international police agency to go into a sovereign nation, where someone is accused of a religious crime and is sent back to a country where they can be put to death. This alarms me. People say, oh, that could never happen in America. Well, right now, the President has allowed Interpol, through an Executive order, through the President's signature, to have diplomatic immunity in our country. For all I know, Interpol could be at this very moment looking for American citizens in this country and trying to get those people and extradite them to Egypt. This is a problem. This is why you don't want an international police force to operate within your sovereign Nation. There can be cooperation, but you don't want impunity and immunity for an international police force within your borders. So I will introduce again an amendment to this bill and this amendment will say no aid to Egypt until they end this prosecution; no aid to Egypt until they end these red letter warrants they have asked for on U.S. citizens to be extradited to Egypt. We can't allow U.S. citizens to be sent to a foreign country to be tried in that country where blasphemy is a crime. Those are not American values, those are not American ways, and we cannot allow U.S. citizens to be subject to foreign laws and foreign crimes. I will ask today for a vote on an amendment that will end Egyptian aid or at least delay Egyptian foreign aid until they relinquish this prosecution of our citizens. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. PAUL

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

Mr. PAUL

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

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss gas prices. Gas prices have doubled under this President, so today this body will consider new legislation which the other side, I assume, thinks will make the situation better. But their solution is to raise taxes on oil companies--raise taxes by $25 billion. Any of you who have a business know when we raise taxes on a business, it simply is a cost to doing business. When your costs increase for making your product, what do you do? You charge your consumer more. So I am not sure what person is advising the other side, but I do not quite understand how raising $25 billion worth of cost on the oil industry is going to help gas prices. In fact, I think it is going to send gas prices even higher. Some on the other side say: Oh, this is a matter of fairness; everybody needs to pay their fair share. Well, oil companies actually pay $86 million a day in taxes. In the last 10 years the oil companies have paid over $100 billion in taxes. And the people who say, well, we must punish them; they are making too much money; let's punish them, well, the oil companies employ 9.2 million people. They are 8 percent of our GDP. Do we want to punish the people who are creating jobs, the people who are trying to make us energy independent in our country? It makes absolutely no sense. Some will argue, well, we need to make the Tax Code fair, and the oil companies have special exemptions. Well, guess what. These exemptions and business deductions apply to other businesses. But they just want to take them away from one of our successful industries. It seems to me, if an industry is successful and creates 9.2 million jobs, instead of punishing them we should want to encourage them. I would think we would want to say to the oil companies: What obstacles are there to you making more money and hiring more people? Instead they say: No, we must punish them. We must tax them more to make things fair. This whole debate about fairness is so misguided and it has gotten out of hand. The rich in our society do pay the vast majority of our taxes. Do not let them tell you otherwise. Those who make over $200,000 a year pay 70 percent of the income tax. Those who make more than $70,000 a year pay about 96 percent of the income tax. And 47 percent of our public do not pay an income tax. So those who are saying the rich are not paying their fair share are trying to use envy and class warfare to get people stirred up. But it makes absolutely no sense. We as a society need to glorify those who make a profit and those who employ people. We need to encourage more business in this country. The oil companies employ 9.2 million people. We do not need to heap punishment on them. We need to give them encouragement to employ more people. I will have two amendments to this bill that I think would actually make it better. While the President talks about people not paying their fair share, he is actually giving more than their fair share to his friends. I do not think the government should be used as a loan agency to give money to contributors. This is unseemly. I think the conflict of interest is undeniable. We have companies such as Solyndra. This is a company that received $500 million of your money and went bankrupt. It just so happened that the owner of the company is the 20th richest man in the United States and a big donor of the President. It just so happens that this company, Solyndra, the person who approved their loan was related, was the husband, of a woman who worked for Solyndra. Another company, a company called BrightSource out of Massachusetts, is owned by a member of the Kennedy family. They got $1.8 billion. Guess who approved their loan. A guy who used to work for the Kennedys who is now in President Obama's administration. It does not pass the smell test. What we have is crony capitalism or crony governmentalism where the government is picking out their friends and giving money to their friends. So we come here today to raise taxes on Big Oil. Meanwhile, we are giving money to millionaires and billionaires, and it does not seem right that your tax dollars should be sent to companies simply because they were big contributors. Another company, Fisker Karma, got $500 million supposedly to make an electric car in the United States. Guess where they are making it. In Finland. We sent money to Solyndra through international banks, through the Ex- Im Bank. We sent money to First Solar through the Ex-Im Bank. Do you know what their money was for? Their money was given to them so they could buy their own products. The company bought a subsidiary in Canada. We gave money to the company in the United States and let them buy their own products with your money. It makes absolutely no sense. So I have two proposals. One amendment to this bill would say. Look, if you think some companies are getting unfair deductions, let's get rid of all deductions. Let's just have a flat tax. Let's make the corporate income tax 17 percent. Currently it is 35 percent. So if we want to encourage business, if we want to encourage employment, lower taxes; do not raise taxes. Canada has an income tax for their corporations of 17 percent. Most of Europe is in the low 20s, and we are at 35 percent. We wonder why we cannot get business started in this country. We wonder why there is billions, even trillions of dollars, left overseas that will not come home because we want to charge them a 35-percent tax when it comes home. Our bill would also say: If you have already paid taxes overseas once, you do not have to pay again when you come home. So a 17-percent flat tax. We would see a boom in this country like we have not seen in a generation. We would see millions of jobs being created if we would just learn the basic facts of economics. If we punish a company, we will have less jobs. If we encourage a company by giving them more tax breaks, we will have more jobs. Taxes are a cost. If this bill passes, not only will our gas prices continue to rise-- they have already doubled--but we will see our gas prices going through the roof. But then again there are people in this administration who do not even drive a car. They do not understand the price of gas because they do not have to drive a car. Someone picks them up in a limousine. The thing is, they need to go to the pump. They need to see how much we are spending on gas. They need to see what they are doing to this country and what they are doing to the job market. I have a second amendment to this bill that would take all of this money, all of these loans they are giving to their buddies--the Solyndra loans, the Fisker Karma loans, the First Solar loan--all of this money that is being dispensed to people who are large contributors of the President, we would take that loan program and eliminate it. When we eliminate that loan program, we would save nearly $30 billion. The GAO has said as much as $6 billion is at risk for loss now. If we were to eliminate that money, we could put half toward the debt and then put half toward rebuilding our infrastructure. The President says he wants to rebuild our bridges. He came to my State. I stood on a bridge with him and said I would help. But the way to help is by not passing out dollars to friends that are being lost by the billions of dollars. We cannot simply create the money; let's find the money. So I propose to end the Department of Energy loans and take that money, put half of it against the debt, and put half of that into repairing or replacing our bridges. This is how government should work. We should pick priorities. There is not an unlimited amount of money. So let's take it from an area where it is prone to corruption and where it is prone to a conflict of interest--these alternative energy loans that seem to be going mostly to the President's friends and political campaign contributors, let's take that money and use it to repair the bridges and to pay down the debt. This is what responsible government should do. But what we are doing in this body, what will happen in the next 24 hours as we discuss this bill is--and everybody in America needs to be very clear about this--when they go to the gas pump and pay more every day for gasoline, they need to realize where the responsibility lies. The responsibility lies with those who are running up the debt, and as we pay for the debt we print new money. So gas prices rising means the value of the dollar is shrinking. That is why prices are rising. We need to realize who is to blame for the gas prices. It is those who are running up the debt. But we also have to realize it is even worse than that. It is not just the running up of the debt, we have to realize these people today now want to add $25 billion to the gas prices. That is what happens. When we raise the taxes on the oil companies we will add $25 billion in taxes, but we will increase their cost by $25 billion. Any business that sells products simply passes that on to the consumer. So what we are here about--and they should retitle their bill--since they are willing to, by this legislation, increase gas prices, it should be called ``the bill to raise your gas prices.'' So what I would ask this body to do is to consider two amendments that would actually lower the debt and take money away from crony capitalism and another one that would reform the Tax Code to eliminate deductions and discrepancies within the Tax Code, but to do it by lowering the tax rate, flattening the tax rate, and allowing businesses to succeed in our country. It gets down to whom do you want to represent you in Washington, DC? Do you want a party that basically wants to punish business, those who are creating jobs, or do you want a party that wants to encourage business? We are in the midst of a great recession. Until we understand this fundamental fact, we are not going to recover as a nation. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Reserving the right to object, I am amazed the majority party objects to an amendment that simply restates the Constitution. Our Founding Fathers feared granting power to declare war to the Executive. They were quite concerned that the Executive can become like a King. Many in this body could not get boots on the ground fast enough in a variety of places, from Syria to Libya to Iran. We don't just send boots to war; we send our young Americans to war. Our young men and women, our soldiers, deserve thoughtful debate. Before sending our young men and women into combat, we should have a mature and thoughtful debate over the ramifications of war, over the advisability of war, and over the objectives of the war. James Madison wrote: . . . that the Constitution supposes what history demonstrates, that the Executive is a branch most interested in war, and most prone to it. Therefore, the Constitution, with studied care, vested that power in the legislature. My amendment is one sentence long. It states that nothing in this act is to be construed as a declaration of war or as an authorization of the use of military force in Iran or Syria. I urge that we not begin a new war without a full debate, without a vote, without careful consideration of the ramifications of a third or even a fourth war in this past decade. I, therefore, respectfully, object.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, I rise today in opposition to corporate welfare. At a time when our country is borrowing over $1 trillion a year, I think it makes no senses to loan money to countries we are borrowing from. For example, we borrowed $29 billion from Mexico, and yet we are sending them $8 billion of the money we borrowed from them to subsidize trade. A lot of the subsidized trade goes to very wealthy corporations. When 12 million people are out of work in the United States, does it make sense for the U.S. taxpayer to subsidize loans of major multinational corporations? The President is big on saying, well, these rich companies need to pay their fair share. Well, why then is the President sending loans out to these very wealthy corporations? And he is actually giving them their fair share of our taxpayer money. Why is that occurring? I have often asked the question, Is government inherently stupid? Well, you know, I don't think government is inherently stupid, but it is a debatable question. Government doesn't get the same signals your local bank gets. Your local bank has to look at your creditworthiness. Your local bank has to make a profit. Your local bank has to meet a payroll. But once the government gets in charge of these things, Katy- bar-the-door. We don't have a good track record with government banks because they do not feel deep inside the same pain that an individual banker feels when he gives a loan. We have Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac losing $6 billion of your money a quarter. And what do they want to do? They want to expand another government bank. So get this right. The Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that are government banks are losing $6 billion a quarter, and recently they wanted to give their executives multimillion dollar bonuses. They said, Well, you have to pay people if you want to keep good talent. My question is, How much talent does it take to lose $6 billion a quarter? I think there are people here today watching the Senate who would take $19 million a year to run one of these government banks only to have their record be that they lost $6 billion a quarter. That is outrageous. Then wanting to expand a new government bank and give money to very wealthy corporations that are making a profit? It makes no sense whatsoever. Jefferson said government is best that governs least. What did he mean by that? He meant he wanted government to be small because government is inherently inefficient. Government doesn't get the same signals. That is why we should only let government do the things the private sector can't do. Banking is something the private sector can do. We are not talking about starting new companies, for the most part; we are mostly talking about subsidizing very wealthy multinational companies. But let's look at the companies the Export-Import Bank is subsidizing. One of them is called First Solar. You may have heard that a lot of these solar companies are big contributors to President Obama. I wonder if that has something to do with them getting loans. But here is the loan First Solar gets from Export-Import. They get paid and they have a loan that says they are going to make solar panels, and then who is going to buy the solar panels? Themselves. So they made a deal with another company they own and the taxpayer is stuck financing a loan so First Solar can make solar panels and then buy them from themselves. That sounds like a good deal. You get the government to subsidize a loan to buy your own product. Who else are we subsidizing? We gave $10 million in loans to Solyndra. You may have heard of Solyndra. Solyndra is owned by the 20th richest man in the United States, who just happens to be a big contributor to President Obama. Coincidence? I don't know. Guess who works for the Department of Energy. Solyndra's lawyer's husband works for the Department of Energy, and he was apparently a big fan of these loans and a big fan of restructuring these loans. Do you think people approving the loans should be related to the people getting the loans? Robert Kennedy, Jr., of the famous Kennedy family, got $1.8 billion. Just so happens they are big political supporters of the President also. How did they get the loan? Somebody who used to work for Kennedy now works in the loan department at the Department of Energy. Sounds as though there might be a conflict of interest. This is a real problem. But this is a problem that is endemic to government banks. Once you let the government get hold of the banks, and once you let them make the loan decisions, they do it and they give the money to their favorites. So when one party is in charge, their favorites get them; when the other party is in charge, their favorites get them. The government shouldn't be in this business. These are large multinational corporations that can find loans for themselves. Guess what. Sometimes they are loaning money to other governments that then compete with our industry. We are loaning money to India, to whom we also owe billions of dollars, but then India subsidizes an airline that competes with U.S. airlines. It doesn't make any sense at all. But we continue to do things that are counterproductive, counterintuitive, at taxpayers' expense. Then we say, well, to keep good talent, we have to pay these guys millions of dollars to run these government banks. The problem is government banks don't respond the way business does. They respond in a fashion where they do not feel the pain. No one loses their job. No one loses a night's sleep over a government loan. When a bank loans you money, someone has to make a profit and meet a payroll. It is different. You have the checks and balances of the marketplace. You don't need to have the government involved here. There are a couple questions we should ask before doing what the other side wants to do. They want to expand the size of this corporate welfare. They want more corporate welfare going out to multinational corporations. In doing so, they want you, the taxpayer, to be on the hook for more money. I would say we have to ask some questions. Should we be dispensing loans based on political favoritism? Should it matter if one is a big contributor to the President? Should that matter in getting a loan? No. I think that ought to be illegal. If it is not immoral, it ought to be. It is immoral. It should be illegal. We shouldn't be doing that. Then the other question is, does it make sense to borrow billions of dollars first from China or India and then send it back to them to say: Please, buy our products with it. So we borrow the money from them, and then we send it back to the very same countries. It makes utterly no sense. I ask the Senate to consider seriously whether, at a time we are running a $1 trillion deficit, it makes sense to be subsidizing profitable, large multinational corporations. I don't think so, and I don't think the taxpayer thinks so. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, currently, the bridge between Marshall County and Trigg County has been collapsed by a disaster. If you were to repair your bridges or repair roads that have been washed out, there is an enormous amount of government redtape that can slow the process down. On average, to get an environmental study done, it can be 4 years at times. This amendment would remove government redtape and allow us to fix our bridges when we have a disaster--such as a collapse--and fix our roads when a road is washed out. This is different than the alternative. The alternative we just voted on was: say something; do nothing. This is something that will say something and do something--an amendment that will get rid of government redtape and allow us to repair our bridges in an expeditious fashion. Often we wait years to go through the government redtape. This cuts through it and allows States to immediately repair and replace broken or collapsed bridges and roads. I urge support for and adoption of amendment No. 1556. Thank you.

Mr. PAUL. Yes.

Mr. PAUL. Madam President, we have a bridge out between Marshall County and Trigg County. It takes 1 hour to go around the lake. What we are asking for is an exemption from onerous and overzealous regulations that can slow the process of rebuilding a bridge or road by years. The average time for an environmental review for a construction project is 4 years. The other side wants to pay lip service. They want to say something about it but do nothing to fix the problem. The people who live in Marshall County and Trigg County want their bridge fixed. They want to get to work and not take an hour and a half to get to work. The way we fix this is we get rid of the redtape. The way we do that is by changing the law. So what I propose is that we vote against the say something, do nothing and vote for a reform that actually has teeth and would take away the redtape and allow us to immediately begin to repair our bridges without Big Brother obstructing the reconstruction. Thank you. I yield the floor.