TSA Office Inspection Accountability Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, I am reminded of that famous line from ``Cool Hand Luke'': ``What we have here is a failure to communicate.''

What we have here in Congress is a failure to legislate, a failure to exert congressional authority. What we have here is a failure to use our leverage. What we have here is a failure to use the power of the purse.

Conservatives across America are unhappy, and rightly so. We were told that when we took over Congress, when Republicans were elected to Congress, that things would be different: that if voters put us in charge, we would right the ship, we would stop the deficits. And here we are with another continuing resolution.

What is a continuing resolution? It is a continuation of the deficit spending of the past. It is a continuation of the waste. It is a continuation of the duplication. What is a continuing resolution? It is a steaming pile of the same old, same old.

Let me be clear: A continuing resolution is not a good thing. It is more of the status quo. It is a warmed-over version of yesterday's failures. It is an abdication of congressional authority. It is an abdication of congressional power.

Let's at least be honest. With a continuing resolution, no waste will be cut, no spending will be cut, no regulations will be stopped, and the debt will continue to mount.

We are told that we cannot win, that we need 60 votes to defund anything, but perhaps there is an alternate future where courage steps up and saves the day.

All spending is set to expire automatically. This is the perfect time to turn the tables, to tell the other side that they will need 60 votes to affirmatively spend any money. See, it doesn't have to be 60 votes to stop things. All spending will expire, and only those programs for which we can get 60 votes should go forward.

What would that mean? That would mean an elimination of waste, an elimination of duplication, an elimination of bad things that we spend money on.

If we had the courage, we could use the Senate's supermajority rules to stop wasteful spending. If we had the courage, we could force the other side to come up with 60 votes to fund things like Planned Parenthood. The budget is loaded with nonsense and waste.

Some will say our job is to govern, to preside. But to preside over what? To preside over a mountain of new debt? To be the same as the other side--to continue to add debt after debt? Our debt will consume us if we continue to preside over the status quo. It is as if we are on the Titanic and just simply reshuffling the chairs. A continuing resolution continues the wasteful spending of money.

I can go on and on about what we are wasting money on. I will tell of a few.

We spent $300,000 last year studying whether Japanese quail are more sexually promiscuous on cocaine. I think we could poll the audience and save money. These things should never have had money spent on them, but if we do a continuing resolution, it will continue.

We spent several hundred thousand dollars studying whether we can relieve stress in Vietnamese villagers by having them watch American television reruns. I don't know about you, but I don't want one penny of taxpayer dollars going to this ridiculous stuff. If we continue, if we pass a continuing resolution, no reform will occur.

We spent $800,000 in the last couple of years developing a televised cricket league for Afghanistan--$800,000. Do you know how many people have a television in Afghanistan? One in 10,000 people. And I don't care if they all have TVs, it is ridiculous that our money, which we don't even have--we have to borrow it from China to send it to Afghanistan. If we pass a continuing resolution, we are agreeing to continue this nonsense.

We spent $150,000 last year on yoga classes for Federal employees. So not only do we pay them nearly 1.5 times as much as private-sector employees, we give them yoga classes. If we pass a continuing resolution, this goes on and on. Nothing will change. The status quo will continue, and we will continue to spend ourselves into oblivion.

We spent $250,000 last year inviting 24 kids from Pakistan to go to space camp in Alabama. We borrow money from China to send it to Pakistan.

It is crazy, it is ridiculous, and it should stop. We have the power to stop it. Congress has the power to spend money or not spend money, and yet we roll over and we say: It must continue; we don't have the votes to stop it. Nonsense. The other side doesn't have the votes to continue the spending if we would stand up and challenge them.

We spent $500,000 last year or the year before developing a menu for when we colonize Mars. We sent a bunch of college students to Hawaii to study this. We paid $5,000 apiece. They got 2 weeks all expenses paid in Hawaii. And do you know what a bunch of college kids came up with? Pizza. This is where your money is going.

I could go on, hundreds and hundreds of programs. If we do not exert the power of the purse, this continues.

We should attach to all 12 individual spending bills--not glommed together--we should attach hundreds of instructions, thousands of instructions. Now, some of the media have said: Well, those would be riders on appropriations bills. Exactly. That is the power of the purse. If you object to the President writing regulations without our authority, Congress should defund the regulations. Congress should instruct him on ObamaCare, on what we object to. Congress should instruct him that we don't want money spent on Planned Parenthood. Hundreds and hundreds of instructions should be written into every bill and passed and sent to him.

Would we win all of these battles? Do we have the power to win every battle and defund everything we want? No. But do you know what we start out with? Our negotiating position right now is, we start out with defunding nothing. Why don't we start out with a negotiating position that we defund everything that is objectionable? All the wasteful spending, all the duplicative spending, let's defund it all. If there has to be a negotiation, let's start from defunding it all and see where we get, but it would take courage because we would have to let spending expire. If we are not willing to let the spending expire and start anew, we have no leverage. The power of the purse is there only if you have courage. We must have the courage of convictions to say enough is enough, that the debt is a greater threat to us than letting spending expire.

Now, several will report on this speech and say: Oh, he wants to shut down government. No, I don't. I just want to exert the power of the purse, and that means spending must expire. I am all for renewing the spending, but let's renew only the spending that makes sense. We have the power of the purse if we choose to exert it. Look at the mountain of debt. Look at the debt that continues to be added up. We have not been doing our job.

The way we are supposed to spend money in Congress is 12 individual appropriations bills. They have passed out of committee. Why aren't they presented on the floor? The Democrats have filibustered the only one presented. Let's present every one of them, and let the public know--let everyone in America know--that it is Democrats filibustering the spending bills. It is Democrats who desire to shut down government. It is Democrats who desire not to have any restrictions on where the money is spent. It is Democrats who are saying: We don't want to end wasteful spending. We don't want to end any spending. We don't want any controls over spending. We want to continue the status quo. But we should not be complicit with them.

We have allowed this to go on for too long. It threatens the very heart of the Republic. It threatens our very foundation to continue to borrow $1 million a minute. It is time that we stood up. It is time that we took a stand and said enough is enough.

When is the last time we did it in the appropriate fashion? When is the last time Congress passed each of the individual appropriations bills with instructions on how to spend the money? It was 2005, a decade ago. It has been a decade. In the last decade we have added nearly $10 trillion in new debt. It is time to take a stand.

I, for one, have had enough. I have had enough. I am not going to vote for a continuing resolution. A continuing resolution is simply a continuation of the mounting debt. I, for one, will not do it. A continuing resolution is retreat. It is announcing your defeat in advance.

What we should do is take a stand. We should say to the other side: In the Senate, it requires a supermajority. What does that mean? It means 60 votes to pass spending. What would happen? Spending that is controversial, like Planned Parenthood, would fall away. They can ask for private donations. Good luck on that. You wouldn't find things being funded that are controversial. What would happen is there would no longer be funding for wasteful and duplicative projects.

We listed these a couple years ago. I think we had $7 billion worth of just duplication. Did we fix it? No. Every year the President--even this President--puts forward $10, $15, $20 billion worth of programs that could be eliminated. Do they ever get eliminated? No, because Congress is dysfunctional and we continue to pass a continuing resolution, which means we do nothing to exert the power of the purse.

Congress is a shadow of what it once was. Madison said that we would have coequal branches and we would pit ambition against ambition. We no longer do that. Congress is a withering shadow. It is a shadow of what it once was. Congress has no power, exerts no power, and we walk and we live in the shadow of a Presidency that is growing larger and larger and larger.

The President is not afraid. He says he has his pen and his phone. So he is writing and creating law. One of our philosophers we look to is Montesquieu, and Montesquieu said when the Executive begins to legislate, a form of tyranny will ensue. That is what we have now; we have Executive tyranny. It is not just this President, though. It has been going on for a while, probably for 100 years. We have been allowing more and more power to accumulate in the hands of the Presidency.

What we need is a bipartisan taking back of that power. We need Congress to stand up on its own two feet and say: Enough is enough. We are reclaiming the power of the purse, and we are going to do whatever is necessary to get rid of the wasteful spending, the duplicative spending, the offensive spending, and we are going to do what the American people want and that is to spend only what comes in.

But I will tell you, I, for one, will oppose this continuing resolution. I recommend that everybody in America call their Congressmen and say: We are tired of the mounting debt. We want you to stand up. We want you to stand up and say enough is enough. Let the funding expire, and make the other side come up with 60 votes to spend the money.

It is time we took a stand. I hope we will.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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