Commerce, Justice, Science, Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, Interior, Environment, Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Act, 2020
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, we are set to borrow nearly $1 trillion this year. Our overall debt is over $22 trillion.
In my office, I have a debt clock. You can see it at debtclock.org. It is spinning out of control. The numbers are mind-boggling. In the next decade, just the interest on the debt is set to exceed $1 trillion. That is $1 trillion simply wasted because we are not fiscally responsible enough to balance our budget.
There are ramifications to having so much debt. When we monetize the debt or the Federal Reserve creates money to pay for the debt, what ends up happening is it dilutes the value of our current dollars.
We have been doing that for a long period of nearly 100 years or over 100 years, since the Federal Reserve was created, and the vast majority of the dollar's value has been lost over time.
Inflation is not what it used to be, but there are still other problems. As interest grows on the debt, it crowds out other spending. So when we get to spending $1 trillion on the interest of the debt, what it is going to do is it is going to crowd out other spending. Whether you are on the right and you want more military spending or you are on the left and you want more welfare spending, it is being crowded out by the debt growing so much that interest is pushing out other projects.
What I have offered is a commonsense approach to this. Everybody has their sacred cow. Everybody has some money they want to spend somewhere. Why don't we cut every program by 2 pennies? We have a 2- percent across-the-board cut, and so what we would do is we would spend 98 percent of what we spent last year.
It is interesting that groups come in to see me in the office, and they say ``Well, we have this dramatic program, and it is to cure AIDS or Alzheimer's or diabetes, and it is going to be this wonderful project,'' and I say ``Well, last year you got $100 million; could you deal with $98 million this year?'' Interestingly, whether they are conservative, liberal, or independent, they look at me and say ``Well, gosh, yes, I think I can deal with $98 million instead of $100 million; I think we could deal with a 2-percent cut if we get 98 percent of what we got last year.''
Most of the groups that are actually invested in this and have a family member with one of these diseases think they can deal with it. Do you know the only people in the whole country who think we couldn't do it? The people you have elected. They have become so distant from you that they will not vote for any cuts. They think: Oh, woe is me. It will be so much money.
The media will say that even a freeze in spending for 10 years is a $10 trillion cut. How could that possibly be? If we spent the same amount of money next year as we spent this year, how could that be a cut?
But the media controls the narrative. The left has aided and abetted them. They say: Well, we were going to spend 5 percent more, so you cut 5 percent by not increasing the spending from last year.
That is ridiculous. They call a freeze a spending cut. If your salary is going to be the same next year as it was last year, is that a cut or is it getting the same salary?
What I am proposing is that we cut it by 2 percent. Why? Well, we would like to balance the budget, ultimately. This is just the annual budget. This isn't getting rid of the debt--not the $22 trillion debt. It is just so we quit digging the hole deeper.
For the first several years I proposed this, we called it the penny plan. We would cut 1 percent a year for 5 years and the budget would balance in 5 years. Nobody listened.
Not one Democrat cares at all about the debt. Not one of them will ever vote to cut any spending. Now, on the Republican side, they profess to care, but over half of them will not vote to cut any spending. There is a lot of hypocrisy to go around.
When I first started introducing the penny plan, a 1-percent cut would have balanced the budget in 5 years. But since we didn't do it, government spending kept exploding and growing and growing, so now it takes a 2-percent cut. This would be a 2-percent cut of everything but Social Security.
The problem is, though, nobody has introduced a bill in decades and nobody has had a vote in decades on a bill to fix the real problem, which is entitlements. So many of the people will bemoan: Oh, we could never fix it by cutting the discretionary spending, so I am not going to cut any. But that is the only thing we get to vote on, so that is what we are putting forward, a 2-percent cut. Still, in order to balance it, you would have to have a 2-percent cut of the entitlements, as well, but we might as well start with what we are doing.
Some people say: Well, government is so essential. We would cut government, and what would happen to the people who depend on it?
Let me give you an example of some of what your government is spending your money on. The National Science Foundation probably gets the award for some of the most ridiculous spending in all of your government. Even since the times of William Proxmire, in the early 1970s, they would get the Golden Fleece Award.
One of his first awards gave them an award for spending $50,000 to determine what makes you happy. It was thought to be ridiculous at the time, and then, for the last 50 years, we have continued to do it. In fact, just this last year, the National Science Foundation is still concerned about what makes you happy. They spent $500,000 this time. I guess that is inflation. They spent $500,000 studying whether it makes you happy if you take a selfie of yourself while smiling. If you will keep looking at the picture of yourself smiling--the selfie you took-- is that worth $500,000? Do we not have something better we could do? Maybe we can reduce the deficit by cutting the National Science Foundation.
They also studied what Neil Armstrong said when he landed on the Moon. Did he say ``one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind'' or did he say ``one small step for a man''? They spent $700,000 of your money studying whether Neil Armstrong said ``a man'' or ``man.''
Guess what the experts said after they listened to the tape crackle, crackle, crackle, over and over again, for $700,000. They don't know. Experts still disagree on whether he said ``a man'' or just ``man''-- $700,000.
We spent $1.2 million studying online dating. Look, they seem to be successful. I think it must be working. The websites are making a ton of money. Millions of people use them. Why in the world would government study whether dating sites work?
They spend $1.5 million trying to make tomatoes taste better. I don't know where that came from. They funded a book on appreciating the metric system for $188,000. There was a conference sponsored on balding for $22,000.
The Department of Commerce got into the game. They developed a digital down marker for football games for $130,000. I think that had existed already. They spent $500,000 on a movie about the kilogram. Raise your hand if you are going to stay up tonight to watch the documentary by the Department of Commerce on the kilogram.
The Department of Agriculture provides marketing assistance for specialty crops, including Christmas trees. It turns out there are more specialty crops than regular crops. There was $50,000 given to the State of Georgia for marketing Christmas trees.
The Department of the Interior studied people's experiences with sea monsters in Alaska--$150,000. I thought sea monsters were fake news, but I guess in an era of fake news, it is difficult to determine what is really fake news. Your government spent $150,000 studying sea monsters in Alaska.
They built a parking lot at an Indian casino for $500,000. These casinos apparently make multiple millions of dollars a year, and we spent $500,000 paving a parking lot for a for-profit enterprise.
We built a self-cleaning toilet in a New York City park.
We gave $1 million to subsidize Lyft rides. I thought Uber and Lyft were doing quite well without our help.
We gave $153 million to D.C. Metro, which apparently is one of the most mismanaged metros in the country.
Let's see. National Endowment for the Arts--we spent $25,000 on a museum to Hollywood. If there is any person in the country who really does not need any more adoration--and the taxpayers to pay for adoration--it is Hollywood, but you spent $25,000 building a museum, so I guess they can appreciate themselves even more.
In order to combat homelessness in LA, we paid to put on plays. Apparently, if you are homeless, it must make you feel better to watch street performers performing a play in front of you.
We also paid to put on dances with the Cars. While that may sound entertaining, it might be that we might have other things we might want to spend that money on.
We were told every year that we couldn't possibly cut any spending. There is no way we could do it.
I put forward these spending proposals because I ran for office and said that we should balance the budget. I actually believed what I ran on. I thought I would get here, and I thought there would be momentum.
The Republicans all talked about the debt. They don't care. The Democrats are not going to vote for it. No Democrat will vote for a spending cut--never have and never will. But the Republicans will at least tell you they will, and then they don't.
What I am putting forward today is a 2-percent cut across the board. They get to spend 98 percent of what they spent last year, and we could be serious about actually bringing our budget into line. I have yet to meet someone at home who doesn't think it is a good idea, and I have yet to meet very many people here who are willing to entertain the idea.
There is a disconnect between Washington and the people. If you were to ask the people in any of the States that are represented at least by the Republican side--and I venture to say by some on the Democratic side--if you were to ask any of the people in those States ``Do you think we could live with 98 percent of what we spent last year?'' I think the people would say that we ought to do it. Most businesses or families in our country have had to deal with less money and have often had to deal with a lot less than 98 percent of their previous salary, and people do. Businesses recover all the time by having to clamp down and watch their costs, but government never does. Government just keeps spending and spending and spending.
The vote on my amendment will come up in the next few minutes, and it will be a 2-percent cut across the board, and I urge the other Senators to vote in favor of it.
At this time, Mr. President, I call up my amendment 1019 and ask that it be reported by number.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source