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Floor Speech

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Mr. PAUL. I have an uncle who lives just up the road from Asheville. I know about the devastation. One of my best friends from my wedding lives in Asheville as well.

But the thing is, the reason why we won't do this in a responsible way is because the Senate voted to send all of your money to Ukraine. The Senate voted to send $200 billion to Ukraine.

I have been all over the mountains of Appalachia. When I ask people, ``Would you rather your Senators take care of you here in Asheville or here in Pikeville or here in Appalachia or would you rather them send your money to Ukraine?''

I don't get anybody wanting to send a penny to Ukraine.

Look, you can have all kinds of sympathy in the world for Ukraine and hostility toward Russia being the aggressor nation, but we don't have the money. We are $2 trillion in the hole. Interest this year is going to be $1 trillion.

As far as passing this, I am willing to let it pass today. He is going to object to passing his own bill today simply because it gets paid for. How crazy is that? He will not even let the other side object to it. He is going to object to his own bill. I am willing to let the bill pass, but take some of the fluff and boondoggle subsidies from the Green New Deal and put it into here. The money is sitting here. We put it into here for disasters. We help Asheville today.

``Oh, no. It is not the time or the place to pay for things.''

The question before the Senate is whether, on behalf of the American people, we should borrow and spend an additional $810 million for small business loans.

Do you know who gets small business loans right now? Ukraine. We are funding--``60 Minutes'' did a special on this--a purse and dress store in Ukraine. We fund the Ukrainian Government's pensions. Look, half of our State governments are short in pensions. Our U.S. Government is short in pensions, and we are funding them in Ukraine.

So some of the same people who want this immediately--now, now, now, now; we don't want to pay for it--are happy to pay for crap all over Ukraine, including government salaries and pensions and small business loans to Ukraine.

Do you know what? The job of legislators is to make decisions to set priorities. We don't have an infinite amount of money, but we do have enough money to take care of them in Asheville and in Virginia. Simply pay for it, but realize the people assembled will object to their own bill today. I am offering their bill. All we have got to do is take some money that is laying around in a pot of money--Green New Deal boondoggle money going to big corporations--and put it in for a disaster. We can do that today. If you still want to subsidize green energy, come back and do that next year. Pay for it now.

We don't have to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars to bail this program out, but Congress has a habit of refusing to do what you and I would do if faced with a new and large expense: Congress refuses to cut elsewhere even when saying yes to every new spending proposal and program that has led to record high inflation. Americans have been forced to learn the hard way that they are the ones who have to pay for Congress's addiction to spending.

So I offer a fiscally responsible path to pay for the bill and spare Americans from increasing the hidden tax of inflation.

My amendment would rescind $810 million from the Department of Energy's boondoggle green new energy deals. It is a $4.75 billion program that has had repeated bankruptcies in it previously. It is absurd to force taxpayers to subsidize rich companies--with vast resources of their own--to gamble on energy projects that the private sector finds too risky. And, actually, it should be about priorities: the people in Asheville or the Green New Deal. No. This is the best time to put them in contrast, not some other time when people are not hurting, when people can't see the contrast.

Everybody in Asheville should wake up today and find out their Senators are going to reject the disaster money because it is paid for. That is it. They are going to reject taking it from the Green New Deal boondoggle and sending it to Appalachia. It can go today. It can go in 10 minutes. I approve of the money. Just take it from somewhere where it is being wasted. Ideally, I would take it from Ukraine, but that is not available right now, but a lot of the money went to Ukraine also.

A 2015 report from the Government Accountability Office found that when five companies defaulted on these Green New Deal loans, the government--the taxpayers--lost $800 million. It is not a good program to begin with, but it is an easy place to go looking for something that is more important, like the people of Asheville in North Carolina.

This money would have nearly covered today's disaster loan funding, but it was needlessly squandered previously, but there is still money in the fund today. I offered this identical amendment to pay for another bill a month ago, and every Republican voted for it. So I don't understand why Republicans would rise today and object to a pay-for they all voted for last month. If the Small Business Administration must have this additional money, the least we can do is respect the taxpayers and act as good stewards for their money.

Therefore, I ask the Senator to modify his request to include my amendment, which is at the desk, as this would allow the bill to pass if my amendment is attached to it; that the amendment be considered and agreed to; that the bill, as further amended, be agreed to; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

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Mr. PAUL. I don't think we have--we have an objection. You know, I have asked for a unanimous consent. He either objects, or he doesn't object.

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Mr. PAUL. I don't have the floor.

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Mr. PAUL. I have made a motion.

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Mr. PAUL. You have got to respond to the motion.

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Mr. PAUL. I have made a motion to pass the bill.
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Mr. PAUL. The insinuation is made that there is a better time--we will vote on this at another time; maybe, you know, young man, it is just not the time. It is not the time nor the place.

Actually, it is the time or the place, and the only vote against the disaster bill today will be the Senator from North Carolina. He will, today, vote to kill the disaster aid. He says: Well, there aren't enough votes.

We won't know because he is objecting. He isn't allowing the Democrats to object because they always object to anything that is pay- for. But, by his objection, he is not allowing the system to play out. If the Democrats want to object, we will find out that they are opposed to pay-fors, and we will further the definition of who is for not for paying for stuff and who is. But to say that we, as Republicans, are never for paying for disaster relief is to say that we are equally--or the Republicans who are for this--are equally complicit in the accumulation of $35 trillion worth of debt.

So no matter how good the cause is--I don't care whether it is a fire or aid or a flood or rain or all the damage--it all should be paid for. It is the responsible thing to do, no matter how terrible the disaster is.

And it is not like I am saying: Well, let's just wait 2 years until we can earn enough money to pay for Asheville. We have the money. We are a rich country. It is sitting here. I just simply ask: Take it from something here--that is a wasteful corporate bailout to green energy companies--and put it over here.

But the fact is that the Senator from North Carolina is going to kill his own bill today. He is going to vote not to allow it to be heard. And we have no idea whether there are enough votes or not. He can say there aren't enough votes, but he is now the vote that stops the spending from getting easy passage.

What we are going through is a procedure of easy passage. This is allowing things not to go to committee, not to be deliberated but to easily pass. And I am in favor of doing that because of the emergency, because of the tragedy. We allow this to easily pass by simply taking some money from a pile of money over here. If he weren't to object and the Democrats don't stand up, it passes like this.

But then it is not on me; it is on them. They decide that they don't want to pay for anything. And disasters should never be paid for? Well, that is how we have this disaster of a $35 trillion debt, because nobody pays for anything. Nobody cares. It is never the right time.

Well, now is the right time. So if you want easy passage, you have to hear what the problems we face are.

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