Rand Paul Scolds GOP over Spending: 'What Happened to the Tea Party Movement'
The Republican-controlled U.S. Senate is scheduled to vote Thursday on an unpopular budget agreement between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Donald Trump. The proposed budget, which according to U.S. News will add over $2 trillion to the debt, is a controversial topic among fiscally-minded politicians on the hill.
Although Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is confident the Trump-backed bill will pass, the cost to Republican credibility may be steep.
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul — at least today — is sounding the alarm. Paul, one of the most fiscally conservative senators in Washington, is afraid that passage of the bill would say as much about the character of the GOP as it would about their proclivity for overspending.
“We can’t keep going on like this,” Paul said Wednesday on the Senate floor. “Where are all the fiscal conservatives?”
In his speech, Paul hearkened back to the days of the Tea Party movement, a movement founded on holding the government accountable for its bloated spending. “What happened to the Tea Party movement?” Paul asked, describing the movement as a bipartisan effort of “concerned citizens rising up and saying, ‘I don’t want something from government. What I want is a government that is responsible. A government that spends what comes in. A government that doesn’t keep borrowing and borrowing and borrowing, and putting us further at risk.'”
Paul then acknowledged that many Senate Republicans are there because they ran as Tea Party supporters. “That movement elected some of these people,” Paul said.
Paul pointed out that during the previous administration, those same Republican senators were vocal opponents of overspending. “Don’t you remember when President Obama was president? The Republicans all clambering and saying ‘trillion dollar deficits for multiple years!’ Every year they would say ‘President Obama wants to spend and borrow and spend and borrow,'” Paul said.
“I heard it from the very people who today will vote for this monstrosity,” Paul said, referring to the massive budget pact.
Paul also claimed that some of the same senators will vote for his amendment, which is aimed at curbing government waste, but will still cast a ‘yes’ vote for the budget on Thursday.
“Some of them will actually vote for my amendment to give them cover,” Paul said. “They’ll say, ‘Oh yeah, I was for the Paul amendment’ but then they’re also going to vote for the deal that will bankrupt our country.”
Paul’s next words brought the hypocrisy close to home. Maybe a little too close if you’re a Republican that criticized overspending by someone else once upon a time.
“What happened to these people?” Paul asked rhetorically. “They all thought debt was bad when it was President Obama’s debt, but they’re not very ecumenical. They’re not very much into self-examination. They’re not interested in the debt now that Republicans are complicit.”
Paul then turned his attention to the Democrats.
“But before we make this about Republicans, remember that there’s not a Democrat in Washington that cares about the debt,” Paul continued. “The difference between the parties are: the Democrats are honest. They are very honest. They don’t care about the debt.”
The Democratic contenders for president perfectly illustrate Paul’s point, a fact he didn’t fail to notice.
“They’re all over the stage, falling all over themselves trying to give free health care to illegal aliens,” Paul said, referring to the progressive positions of the 2020 hopefuls.”They’re all over the stage trying to talk about giving ‘Medicare for All‘ when we can’t even afford the Medicare for some. So Democrats don’t care. The country should know that. Democrats do not care about the debt.”
On budget deal, @RandPaul excoriates GOP colleagues who fought debt during the Obama years but are “not interested in the debt now that Republicans are complicit.”
Also points out some Rs tend to vote for amendments that won’t pass as political cover to vote for more spending. pic.twitter.com/ko8QBNK4Wh
— Nate Madden (@NateOnTheHill) July 31, 2019
Paul is absolutely correct to rake the Democrats over the coals for their fiscally absurd and un-American approach to economics. But he’s right about the Republicans, too.
The spending situation is Washington is so bad that many patriots say that it can’t be fixed. I know some of them. They believe there will be a monetary crisis and an unprecedented breakdown before we can right the ship of fiscal responsibility.
I hope they are wrong.
But either way, the answer isn’t to keep kicking the can down the street.
“Here’s the problem,” Paul concluded. “The only opposition party we have in the country is the Republican party and they don’t care either. They just come home and they’re dishonest and tell you they care and then they vote for a monstrosity.”
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
