Never Forget the Heroes: James Zadroga, Ray Pfeifer, and Luis Alvarez Permanent Authorization of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund

Floor Speech

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Mr. PAUL. Madam President, today I will offer an amendment to pay for the spending in this bill. This is not something unusual. I do this day in and day out. It has been part of the reason I ran for office--that we shouldn't add more debt to our country without trying to pay for it by maybe reducing spending from wasteful spending.

In the last week or so, we have seen a manufactured crisis. Rarely has there been a manufactured crisis so intense--a fake furor instigated by partisans more concerned with scoring points than telling the truth. But, for some of us, the truth is still important.

The mob and demagogues in this body accuse me of holding up this bill for political points. They obviously don't know much about politics, because there certainly hasn't been any political gain by my holding this bill for debate and amendment. But I think it is important we do this, rather than rush through and everybody says: No questions asked, please. It sounds a little more like an authoritarian atmosphere than it would be a democracy, to actually have debate, discussion, and amendments. That is all we have asked for.

In fact, last week when we were granted the amendments, we said to the other side: Let's have the vote--last week. And all of those who were in such a furor, all those who were so hysterical that the world was ending said: Oh, we cannot vote on it--it was not convenient last week--because some of our Democrat Members have already gone home for the weekend. So when the mob was told last week they could have the vote, they said no. It is a manufactured crisis. As of today, the fund in question has $2 billion in it, and no one is being denied medical care.

So let's have an honest debate. Let's have an honest debate about whether it matters to this country whether we are $2 billion in debt, and whether or not, when we have new spending programs--no matter how charitable, no matter how needed--whether or not we are going to pay for them by reducing spending in wasteful programs.

It is perhaps a historical anomaly that this bill appropriates unlimited funds for a virtually unlimited time period.

What would you think if someone came to you, they had a good cause, and they said: You know, my neighbors' house has burnt down, and I want to help them, and I want to give them unlimited money for an unlimited period of time?

That wouldn't be wise. No one would do that. So why do we, in our hysteria, throw out all common sense and say that we are going to approach this as if we don't have a problem?

We have this enormous problem in our country. We are borrowing over $1 million a minute. My amendment today is to offer to pay for the $10 billion in the first 10 years. Realize that this bill as written is not a 10-year bill. It is a 72-year bill. It goes to the year 2092. To my knowledge, we have never, ever had a bill that was unlimited in the dollar amount and unlimited in the time period. Mine would be to pay for the first 10 years of this. The pay would come by reducing mandatory spending by 0.06 percent. That is 6/100th of 1 percent of other mandatory spending.

At the same time, we would exempt Medicare, Social Security, and Veterans Affairs from cuts. We would exempt the vast bulk of mandatory spending, but we would still say: If this is a wise expenditure of money, if we need more money for this fund, we would simply take it from something that is less pressing.

No matter how good a cause may be, it makes no sense to borrow from China to pay for our immediate concerns. Spending someone else's money is not charity. Spending borrowed money is just not wise or sound governance.

Being a legislator should be about making choices, about deciding priorities.

For example, which is more important--spending $275 million teaching foreign countries how to apply for U.S. foreign aid and teaching foreign countries how to get our money and how to fill out the grant process? Is that more important than the spending in this bill? We will never know because the people who promote this bill aren't willing to cut any spending. They are not going to look at waste.

We wonder why we have waste run from top to bottom in our government? Because no one is willing, even for a good cause, to say: Why don't we cut out some of this waste? Why don't we quit spending money teaching foreigners how to apply to get more of our money?

To pay for more pressing concerns, shouldn't someone ask whether it is wise to spend $300,000 studying whether Japanese quail are more sexually promiscuous on cocaine? That is your money. So when somebody is being asked for a good cause, ask why we couldn't eliminate money we are spending on awful things that should never have been wasted in the Federal Government.

To pay for more pressing concerns, shouldn't someone ask why we continue to spend $50 billion a year building bridges and roads and hotels and gas stations in Afghanistan? Perhaps that money could be better spent here at home.

The debate today is not over the spending of the money. It is over, when we do spend money--even for a good cause--whether or not we should cut corresponding money that we are wasting around the world, much of it not helping American citizens and much of it going to foreign countries and foreign people.

To pay for more pressing concerns, shouldn't someone ask why we had a study last year that spent $2 million seeking to know the question: If someone in front of you in the cafeteria line sneezes on the food, are you more or less likely to pick up the food and eat it?

Seriously, this is where your tax dollars are going. If we have a better cause, and we want to fund this fund we are talking about today, couldn't we say we will not spend $2 million next year studying whether, if someone sneezes on your food, you are more or less likely to take the food?

Shouldn't we be forced as a Congress to make decisions, instead of just saying: Well, it is a good cause. So, therefore, we should not use our brain. We should put on blinders. We shouldn't think about it, and we should just say: Well, it is a good cause so let's just borrow the money from China.

Do you think that helps us as a country? Isn't part of legislating trying to prioritize spending, not just adding to the debt?

The leftwing mob maintains that Republicans have lost the moral high ground and can't talk about debt anymore because we supported a tax cut. Poppycock. This is misinformation. This is fake news. This is plainly people just not paying any attention to what goes on around here.

During the tax cut, which I supported, I offered cuts to mandatory spending to pay for the tax cut. The media seems to have forgotten this. But I forced a vote on the floor to say: Yes, we may be cutting taxes and, if it affects the deficit, we should pay for it.

Interestingly, though, the leftwing mob doesn't want to admit that when we actually cut tax rates, we actually got more money. The revenue coming in last year was actually greater than the previous year. The tax cut didn't add to the deficit. The deficit went up because we continue to spend money and we actually added more spending. The curve of spending increases actually rose faster than the revenue coming in.

When the tax cut happened, I offered an amendment to cut spending to pay for it. This is a fact. The leftwing mob and all of their buddies in the media can do and say whatever they want. It is a free country, but it is an absolute out-and-out lie that Republicans who voted for this tax cut also were not concerned with spending. I, for one was, and I offered an amendment to cut spending.

The tax cut also was passed under a law we have had on the books for some time. It is called the pay-go law. This is a law that should be working even on a bill like this current bill. But we exempt ourselves from it all the time. The current bill actually exempts the pay-go rules: If you increase spending by $10 billion, you have to decrease it by $10 billion somewhere else.

It has been on the books for a long time, but like everything else Congress does, they try to bring in rules to say: Do you know what? We are going to try to control the debt and spending by forcing ourselves, when we come up with some new spending of $10 billion, that we will have to come up with something to cut to pay for it.

What happens is, Congress just waives the rules. It is not that we don't have rules that should help with the budget; we have hundreds of rules. The pay-go rule is a good rule, but it gets ignored. We passed the tax cut. If the projections were that the deficit was going to go up, guess what, the pay-go rules would say there has to be automatic spending cuts across the board. This is something I support.

So what happened? About a month after the tax cut, a big spending bill comes through here. Both parties are guilty, Republicans and Democrats. They love to spend money more than anything else. A big spending bill comes through, and guess what. They waive the rule on pay-go.

At that time, I also brought up an amendment that said: Hey, you guys shouldn't waive the pay-go rule. If the tax cut causes the debt to go up, we should cut spending across board.

Let's be very clear around here. There are those of us who have been consistent from day one that the debt does matter. There is no particular animus toward this bill. In the last year, I have done this probably a half dozen times. In the last 2 years, I have probably done it two dozen times. That means every spending bill.

A month ago, it was spending for the border. I support money to be spent on the border, but I don't support doing it if it adds to the deficit.

The amendment I have today is identical to the amendment I had a month ago, saying: Border spending, even if you want to do it, we should cut money from somewhere else where it is not as much needed and where it is being wasted.

I did it 3 months ago for the hurricane disaster relief. Every bit of new spending--it doesn't matter whether it is a good cause, bad cause, or an in-between cause, we need to not keep adding to the debt. This is a problem. We borrow over $1 million--close to $2 million every minute. This is a problem for our country. We are eroding the foundation of this country with so much debt--$22 trillion in debt.

The tax cut was passed under the pay-go rules. I voted not to suspend the pay-go rules. I voted to actually have spending cuts to offset any increase in the deficit from the tax cut.

The establishment of both parties moved to waive this pay-go requirement. I forced a vote, and only eight Senators voted, which shows you where the real problem is. Why does the deficit go up so much? There is not one Democrat in Congress who cares a flip about the deficit. Not one Democrat in Congress will lift a finger to refrain from government spending. Therefore, everything--you name it, they are for it.

The problem is, Republicans aren't so good on this either. There are only a handful of Republicans who actually care about the debt, and many of them will vote consistently to raise the debt limit and vote to add new debt.

Today's vote, though, is but a prelude of next week's vote. This is the preliminary. This is the introduction to our problem in our country, over $10 billion. Next week, it is the enormity of the entire budget. Next week, both parties--and watch this closely. People say: Oh, Republicans can't get along with Democrats. Guess what. They get along just swell when it comes to spending money and adding to the debt.

This bill will pass overwhelmingly today without any concern for the debt or paying for it. Next week will be even worse. We have something called the debt ceiling. Every time we spend more money that comes in, in taxes, it approaches a debt ceiling, and the debt ceiling says you can't borrow any more money. So conservatives say: Well, we should reform our ways and quit giving away money to Afghanistan and Mexico and all these different countries. We should have reform involved with raising the debt ceiling.

What is going to come about next week is no debt ceiling for 2 years, until after the next Presidential election. It is a terrible idea. It is fiscal insanity. They also will vote to forever get rid of the sequester caps.

In 2011, amongst the tea party movement, when more people became concerned about the deficit spending, we actually came in and had a reform. For the first time, we didn't cut spending; we slowed down the rate of growth of spending. In doing so, the deficit was narrowing. For a couple of years, we were doing better. Then what happened was basically both parties once again came together. The Republicans said: We want to be in every war overseas we can possibly get involved in, and we want to have more money spent on the military.

The liberals said: We need more money for welfare.

Guess what. They are not at odds. You scratch my back; I will scratch yours.

The Republicans and Democrats agree on one thing: Spending money is the most important thing they can do. The deficit doesn't matter.

So when we come back, when we address this issue next week, what we are going to find is they are going to explode the debt ceiling. There will be no limits on the debt ceiling for 2 years, and they are getting rid of all pretense of having any spending caps.

A majority of Republicans, unfortunately, will even vote to get rid of the budget caps and to eliminate the debt ceiling for 2 years. This is sad.

Today, though, the Senate has a chance to vote to pay for this $10 billion bill with very modest reductions in mandatory spending-- reductions that actually exempt Medicare, Social Security, and Veterans Affairs.

Americans, particularly conservatives, need to sit up and watch closely how their Senators vote, for today's vote is about whether your representative really cares at all about the disaster that is our $22 trillion debt. Amendment No. 929

Madam President, I call up my amendment No. 929 and ask that it be reported by number.

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