On the Senate floor, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) expressed deep concern about the Republican budget resolution, and put forward an amendment to raise the debt ceiling.
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Senator from Kentucky. We're gathered here to talk about the budget. We're
00:07going to be voting on a budget resolution shortly and I'm concerned. I'm
00:12concerned that there's so much enthusiasm among conservatives and
00:17Republicans for cutting waste and cutting fraud and quit spending two
00:23million dollars on sex changes in Guatemala and three million dollars on
00:28girl-centric climate change in Brazil, 4.8 million dollars on social media
00:36influencers in Ukraine. I'm excited by eliminating all of that waste. I've been
00:40calling for it for years but I'll tell you what worries me. What worries me is
00:47that so many things in Washington are smoke and mirrors. On the one hand it
00:52appears as if all of this great savings is happening but on the other hand the
00:58resolution before us will increase the debt by five trillion dollars. So which
01:06is it? Are we cutting spending? Are we expanding the debt? If we expand the debt
01:12at five trillion dollars that will be an expansion of the debt equal to or
01:18exceeding everything that happened in the Biden years. Now which is it? I
01:23thought we had an election. I thought we had an election and the other side is
01:27complaining loudly that oh my goodness there's going to be too much cut in
01:34spending and our side is saying no no no and I'm looking at the numbers. The
01:40budget resolution is going to add five trillion dollars over about a two-year
01:44period. So they're going to add more than two trillion dollars a year to the
01:48debt. In what world is that conservative? They say there is a difference between
01:55the parties and yet when you look at the numbers, when you look at the fact that
02:00this budget resolution is going to borrow five trillion dollars, you scratch
02:04your head and say what's up here? Is there somebody not really being honest
02:10with us? They're going to borrow five trillion dollars and yet they'll say
02:16well the spending is coming down and we've put these numbers in the budget
02:20that will reduce spending. If so why are we borrowing five trillion dollars? The
02:25reason they're going to ask the Republicans and the Democrats, but it
02:30will be mostly Republicans voting for this debt, the reason they're asking for
02:35it is because they're anticipating that's what they'll need. They're also
02:38anticipating that you know it's kind of embarrassing really to talk about debt.
02:42It's extremely embarrassing for Republicans who say they're conservative
02:47to be adding five trillion in debt and voting for it. So they don't want to do
02:51it very often. Let's try to spread it out a long time. Let's try to get through the
02:562026 election. Let's try to get to 2027 before we have to have this
03:01embarrassment brought back in front of us. But the embarrassment and the shame
03:05is coming much quicker. We're going to get to the end of September 30th. That's
03:09the end of the fiscal year for our federal government. And the American
03:15people at that time will be told, hopefully someone in the media notices
03:19this, that the deficit for this year will be over two trillion dollars. The
03:23estimates are that there will be about 2.2 trillion dollars. And we're going to
03:29borrow five trillion dollars. Now some would argue we have but we need to give
03:34them a chance. We need to give them a chance because the spending number
03:38actually looks like they might reduce spending. But here's the problem. The
03:44spending number is lower but this bill also adds 325 billion dollars in new
03:51spending. 150 billion dollars for the military-industrial complex. Another
03:56175 billion dollars for the border. But that's new money. How much money did we
04:02spend last year? A little over seven trillion. But that's not enough according
04:07to all the people here on my side today that are going to vote for this budget.
04:10They want more than last year. Well if last year was 7.1 trillion, that must
04:15mean they're going to want 300 billion more than that. But the number in the
04:19bill says no, 6.5 trillion. So they're saying no, we're going to spend less. I say,
04:23you know what, I've seen the way this place operates and I don't trust either
04:28party. Why? Because I've seen the deficit and the debt grow and triple since I've
04:35been here. It's 36 trillion dollars. Now I voted against every last penny of it.
04:40I voted against the spending bills. I voted to balance the budget. I've
04:43introduced budgets that balance over five years. But you know the one thing
04:48that would happen, even if I had my way and I could introduce and my budget
04:52would be accepted, there'd have to be some debt accumulation. So what I'm
04:56offering today is, let's accumulate some debt. Let's raise the debt ceiling. Never
05:01voted for this before, but I'm willing to vote for three months, about 500
05:06billion dollars to raise the debt ceiling. Why? Because it has to happen. Why
05:11don't I want to give them five trillion? Because then you're just turning your
05:15back and they're going to do whatever they always do. What does the swap always
05:19do? Take your money, borrow money, spend and borrow. It continues unabated. But if
05:25you wanted to keep your Congress on a leash, if you wanted to have leverage, if
05:30you wanted to have leverage to say, well what if you're not being honest with me?
05:34What if in three months the deficit's over two trillion? And what if in three
05:39months the spending levels aren't 6.5 trillion, but in actuality 7.4 trillion?
05:44How would we then rebuke you? How would we stop you? How would we stop the
05:50spending? Well the way we would stop the spending is by not giving you any more
05:53borrowing. So what I'm proposing today is an amendment that will raise the debt
05:58ceiling by five hundred billion dollars. To me that's an extraordinary amount of
06:03money, but your government spends it so darn fast that that's about three
06:08months worth of spending. But there's nothing conservative about raising the
06:14debt ceiling five trillion dollars. It boggles the mind to try to comprehend
06:22how anyone who is self-describing themselves as conservative would vote to
06:27increase the debt by five trillion dollars. It makes utterly no sense, but it
06:33also is free reign for the spenders because they've got five trillion they
06:38can spend. In recent years on occasion they haven't even put a number in there.
06:43Probably the only reason we're getting a number is because the rules of the
06:46budget require a number, but what they've been doing, both parties, they've been
06:51just saying, well why don't we just borrow money for two years or three
06:55years, and many people argue, many on the other side of the aisle say we
07:00shouldn't even have these votes at all. Why have a debt ceiling at all? Let's
07:04just let it spin out of control. Has anybody ever seen the debt clock? Go to
07:10the debtclock.org and watch the numbers spinning wildly out of control. Now some
07:16will say deficits don't matter. This was the the Cheney family. Dick Cheney
07:20famously said deficits don't matter, but the thing is they really do because you
07:27have to pay interest on the debt. We're paying about a trillion dollars in
07:31interest, so the largest item in our spending now, bigger than our military, is
07:37actually the interest. Over the next ten years we're going to pay about fourteen
07:41trillion dollars in interest. I think it's actually probably worse than that.
07:45That's what the estimates are now, but it is literally out of control, and you
07:50say to yourself, how would we rein in spending? You have to look at everything.
07:54Every item we spend money on has to be looked at. You have to look across the
07:59board at everything, but what we have is the current administration says we're
08:03not going to look at Social Security, despite what the other side says about
08:07Social Security. Nothing's gonna happen to Social Security. They're not gonna fix
08:10it. They're not gonna make it better. They're not gonna reduce anything. Social
08:13Security is going to be untouched. So is Medicare, but then there are reports and
08:19complaints saying, well, we shouldn't touch Medicaid either, and then people
08:23say food stamps. We can't touch food stamps. Well, Social Security, Medicare,
08:27Medicaid, and food stamps comprise all the money that comes into our government.
08:31They're about five trillion dollars worth. That's about what we pay in taxes,
08:35so the government brings in about five trillion dollars and spends seven
08:39trillion dollars. It's about a two trillion dollar overdraft. We're two
08:43trillion dollars in the hole every year, and we're up to about 36, 37 trillion
08:47dollars total, but how would we actually get there if you're taking off the table
08:53Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, and food stamps? Those four items are about
09:00five trillion dollars, pretty close to it, so if you take all the entitlements off
09:04the table, what are you left with? And people love, and they get
09:08excited about the terrible foreign aid. I do, too. I think it's the lowest hanging
09:12fruit. It's the most egregious of the spending. It's the easiest to cut, but you
09:17know, I forced a vote on that two weeks ago, and we got no Democrat votes. In fact,
09:22I don't think there is a Democrat in Congress who will vote to cut one penny.
09:25I'd like to do that sometime, introduce a bill to cut a penny or to cut a dollar
09:29to see if they would. Let's cut one dollar from the two million dollars that
09:34they spend doing sex change surgery in Guatemala with U.S. tax dollars. Will the
09:39Democrats support a bill to cut one dollar? Probably not. They would probably
09:44insist, even if they were, if they admitted the program was egregious or
09:48horrible or out of normalcy, they would probably insist the money be
09:53spent somewhere else, and that's sort of the debate we have over time. I have a
09:57bill called bonuses for cost cutters, which says that if you are in charge of
10:02a budget for government, let's say you're in charge of 12 million dollars
10:05at the Department of Energy, if you save a million dollars, you would actually get
10:09a personal bonus for the federal employee as an incentive. When I put this
10:14forward, the main complaint that usually comes from across the aisle is they're
10:18okay with giving federal workers bonuses for saving money, but they insist that
10:22the money not go back to the Treasury. This is the big debate that's going on
10:27also. What Elon Musk has done and Doge has done is absolutely commendable and
10:33we need more of it. The whole place is rotten and needs to be shaken up and we
10:37need to look for waste, but there's going to be another debate. Is that waste going
10:41to come back and are we going to vote on it? Are we going to codify it? Are we going to
10:44make it real by by lowering our numbers? But the only way we would have any
10:49leverage on either party is by only giving them a little taste of the money.
10:55Don't give them so much money they're wallowing in it and it comes out as
10:59fast as the Federal Reserve can print it. Give them about three months worth. Let's
11:03see how they do in three months. If the spending totals that are in the bill
11:07come forward in three months and those are the spending totals that Congress
11:11approves, I'd be pretty satisfied with that. In fact, I've told them the bill on
11:16large, I'm for continuing the tax cuts. I'm for keeping the tax cuts permanent. I
11:21voted for them in 2017. I'm for reducing spending, which on the surface some of
11:26the numbers look better, but I'm just not for borrowing five trillion dollars. If
11:31we're doing a good job, if we're doing a better job, why are we borrowing five
11:35trillion dollars? Something doesn't add up. Something is fishy. If we're going to
11:41do such a good job and if we have transformed government, if we are
11:46different than the other side of the aisle and we really are for less
11:49spending, less debt, why are we borrowing more money than we've ever borrowed at
11:54one time in the history of the country? This will set a record. I believe five
11:59trillion will be the most that's ever been borrowed in one fell swoop. This
12:02will be a vote, and I think an ignominious one, in which professed
12:09conservatives stand up, stand forward, and vote for more debt than Congress has ever
12:15voted for at one period of time. It just disappoints me. I'm so
12:21disappointed, but I'm also disappointed because I think within a few months when
12:25the American people see this, particularly when Republicans at home
12:29see, oh my goodness, I heard all this good news about cutting foreign aid and
12:34cutting all this crazy spending around the world, but the deficit is still two
12:39trillion dollars this year, and then they're going to scratch their heads and
12:43maybe they give the Republicans another six months to look, and then they're
12:46going to find that another trillion dollars has been borrowed in another six
12:50months, and they're going to find we're two years into a new Republican
12:53administration with a Republican majority in the Senate and a Republican
12:57majority in the House, and we're going to borrow five trillion dollars. Something
13:01doesn't add up here. Someone needs to stand up and say something. Someone needs
13:07to give conservatives, if we have conservatives in this body, an
13:10alternative. That's what my amendment will be. My amendment will be an
13:14alternative. Instead of borrowing five trillion dollars, sticking our head in
13:19the sand and saying, oh please be nice to us and do what you promised and spend
13:24less money, no. We give them three months and we say, prove to us that you will for
13:29the first time adhere to your word. And it isn't just a couple individual people.
13:35This is the history of the institution. Occasionally, through the last
13:40several decades, there have been people come forward and they put forth rules.
13:44There was Graham Rudman Hollings. There were different rules that said you have
13:48to pay as you go. So if somebody brought up three hundred billion dollars in new
13:53spending, you'd have to cut three hundred billion dollars from somewhere else. But
13:56you know what's happened? These things have been evaded time and time again. Why
14:01are people like me cynical of the process? Why do people like me not
14:05believe them when they say they're gonna cut spending? Because they've always gone
14:09back on their word. They exempt themselves from the rules they create.
14:14Graham Rudman Hollings, pay as you go, would have been effective, but it's been
14:19evaded by Congress 60, 70 times now. So I say trust but verify. I say trust, accept
14:29your colleagues if they say they're really gonna do this, but give them three
14:33months worth of borrowing. Don't give them two years worth of borrowing. Don't give
14:36them five trillion. Don't put yourself on record. Today if this is passed, or
14:42tomorrow morning or early if this is passed, Republicans who vote for this
14:46will be on record as being more fiscally liberal than their counterparts. They
14:52will vote to borrow more money than the Democrats have ever borrowed. So there
14:58really is a disconnect here. Something is not as it appears. There is a smoke and
15:04mirrors. There is this great enthusiasm across the land for what is happening,
15:10and I share that. I share President Trump's desire to balance a budget. I'm
15:17pleased with his cabinet. I'm super pleased with, you know, having Elon Musk
15:22and Doge and these young people look for waste. I'm for all of that and more, but
15:28if it's going to be reflected in something, we have to borrow less. If
15:32we're still borrowing the same amount, maybe it isn't real. Maybe we're just
15:37talking about things and we're not actually doing them. It is hard to cut
15:43spending. Everybody wants something. Everybody wants something from
15:46government, but there is no such thing as something for nothing. It has to come
15:51from somewhere. Most people know this in their daily lives. As you work, you get
15:56something for work, and you feel good about yourself because you've worked for
15:59something. You can't simply just hand out money to people. You can't print up
16:04money like it grows on trees, but I can tell you there's an absolute historical
16:11record of abuse by both parties, but what saddens me in particular for Republicans
16:17is Republicans will go on record today to increase the debt more than the
16:22Democrats ever had. The new world's record for accumulation of debt, the new
16:28world record for expanding debt in our country will belong to the Republican
16:33Party with this. This is a sad day. I will vote against this bill and object to it
16:39unless we get rid of this enormous amount of borrowing. If we get rid of the
16:43five trillion dollars and adopt my amendment, I'll vote for the bill. The
16:47bill would borrow, if my amendment were passed, five hundred billion dollars. Is it
16:51enough? No, we'd have to do it again. We'd come back in three months, but this is
16:56the idea of trust but verify. If the promises are real, and if the big
17:01spenders in both parties are doing a good job, when they come back and prove
17:05to us that they've actually done something they have never done in the
17:09past, they have changed their ways, and they're not going to keep adding massive
17:13debts year after year, then we give them another three months. If they do a great
17:18job, maybe we give them six months, but we don't give big spenders in Washington
17:23who have a terrible history with the debt, we don't give them no leash at all,
17:28no controls at all. Five trillion dollars here, spend it however you want. We don't
17:34do that. At least we profess not to on our side. So my amendment will give all
17:40members of the body a chance to say, do you want continued oversight of your
17:46government by looking at the debt ceiling periodically, or you just want to
17:49wash your hands. I say if we wash our hands, we speed up the demise of our
17:55country. I think now is an inflection point. The stock market in the last two
18:01days lost over six trillion dollars. We live in perilous times, and I think the
18:08people who just keep going on their merry way, saying we'll just do the same thing,
18:13and we'll tell the people it's a little different than the other side, maybe
18:17they'll vote for us this time, maybe they won't. I don't think it's going to
18:21happen. I think the people are frustrated, I think the people are annoyed, and I
18:25think the people are frankly worried. The people have been trying to save and are
18:28getting closer to retirement are looking at their retirement next egg and saying,
18:32oh my goodness, look what's happened to us. Where are we going? Part of that
18:38message is an indictment of tariffs, that I think millions of investors think
18:43tariffs are a bad idea, but part of it's an indictment over our massive
18:49accumulation of debt. The fact that we're spending seven trillion dollars and
18:52bringing in five trillion dollars. I hope the body will consider my
18:56amendment, and maybe I'll be shocked. Maybe we'll get enough votes from both
19:00sides of the aisle to actually have a shorter leash and have more perspective
19:06and more concern and oversight for what our spending will do. I recommend a
19:11yes vote on my amendment, which will change the debt ceiling from five
19:15trillion to 500 billion.