(CNSNews.com) – Prior to the Senate vote on the two-year budget deal arranged by President Trump and the congressional leadership, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) spoke on the Senate floor saying, “This may well be the most fiscally irresponsible thing we’ve done in the history of the United States.”
The deal, which passed the House last week and the Senate on Aug. 1, will increase discretionary federal spending by $320 billion and allow the federal government to borrow an unlimited amount of money until July 31, 2021.
In his speech, Senator Paul decried the federal government’s “spending problem,” lamenting that “the federal government is currently spending nearly $2 million dollars every minute.” He also accused proponents of the bill of “recklessly endangering our children and our grandchildren” and “binding our kids to this massive burden of debt.”
Paul criticized both political parties, saying, “at least Democrats are honest. Democrats don’t care about deficits, and they’ll tell you that to your face. Democrats, in fact, are falling all over themselves to propose over $50 trillion dollars in new spending in addition to the trillion dollar annual deficits.”
“They want to add $50 trillion dollars in spending,” said Paul. “But it’s not just Democrats. Republicans are also guilty -- at least the big-government Republicans who will vote for this monstrous addition of debt.”
“The media reports a lack of compromise,” Paul continued. “The opposite is true. There is too much compromise and the compromise is always more debt, more pork- barrel spending and more burden for our kids.”
“What I offer today is a compromise,” he said. “The right would have to deal with less military spending. They say, ‘oh, we don’t have enough.’ Perhaps the mission’s too big for the budget. It isn’t a lack of money. We spend more money on the military than the next ten countries combined.
“We spend more money on the military than all of Europe spends,” he said. “It isn’t lack of money. It’s that the mission’s too large. Why do we have troops in 50 of 55 African countries? Why are we involved in every civil war on the globe? We need to question what our mission is.”
“The left would have to accept less welfare spending or at least holding the line and getting 98% of what they spent last year on welfare,” said Paul. “The right would have to spend 98% of what they spent on the military last year and guess what? We’d balance the budget.”
Paul continued to propose an amendment to the spending bill that prohibits the government from raising the debt ceiling unless a balanced budget is passed, spending caps are implemented and spending is cut. He said, “This is the only responsible way of dealing with this.”
Paul’s amendment failed in a 23-70 vote. The budget deal passed with a vote of 67-28.
Five Democrats and 23 of the 53 Republicans in the Senate voted against the bill.