Transcripts For CSPAN U.S. Senate Sen. Paul On Budget Cap Increases In 2-Year Budget 20180209

And something that we should be very wary of. This is in addition to what we were already running debt of nearly a trillion dollars. Its adding a couple extra hundred billion dollars a year to a budget and a country and a congress that had already recklessly let spending get out of control. The bill is nearly 700 pages. It was given to us at midnight last night, and i would venture to say no one has read the bill. No one can thoroughly digest a 700page bill overnight, and i do think that it does things that we really, really ought to talk about and how we should pay for them. One of the things this bill does is going to add 500 billion in spending over a twoyear period. This bill increases spending 21 . Does that sound like a large amount . Is anybody at home getting a bonus or an increase in your paycheck of 21 . And yet your government is going to spend 21 more without really having a full debate, without having amendments. The exchange you just watched was me asking to have a 15minute vote. I have been asking all day. I have been asking all week for it. We could have literally had dozens of votes today, but we squabble because people dont want to be put on the spot. So the reason im here tonight is to put people on the spot. I want people to feel uncomfortable. I want them to have to answer people at home who said how come you were against president obamas deficits and then how come youre for republican deficits . Isnt that the very definition of intellectual dishonesty . If you were against president obamas deficits and now youre for the republican deficits, isnt that the very definition of hypocrisy . People need to be made aware. Your senators need to answer. People need to answer this debate. We should have a fullthroated debate. My amendment says this simply we should obey the budget caps. What are budget caps . These are limits we placed on spending, both military and nonmilitary. We placed them in 2011, and guess what . For a year or two, government actually shrunk. But now governments taking off, and this new stimulus of deficit spending will be as big as president obamas stimulus. Dont you remember when republicans how old to high heaven howled to high heaven that president obama was spending us into the gutter, spending us into oblivion, and now republicans are doing the same thing. So i ask the question, whose fault is it . Republicans . Yes. Whose fault is it . Democrats. Yes, its both parties fault. You realize that this is the secret of washington, the dirty little secret is the republicans are loudly clamoring for more military spending, but they cant get it unless they give the democrats welfare spending. So they raise all the spending. Its a compromise in the wrong direction. We should be compromising in the direction of going toward spending only what comes in. And yet, this goes on and on and on. You will hear people say well, the military has hollowed out, we have not enough money for our military, and yet we doubled the amount of money we spend on the military since 9 11, 2001. Look, i have family members in the military. I have retired members of the military in my family, and i care very deeply about our soldiers. In fact, do you know what i would do . I would bring them all home from afghanistan. The war is won. People talking about making a parade. Declare victory in afghanistan, bring them home, have a parade, and give them all a raise. And yet we go on and on and on, finding new wars to fight that make no sense where we have no idea who the good guys are and who the good guys are that are so murky that halfway through the war we sometimes change sides, or the people we support change sides. So were at war in afghanistan after 16 years. It costs 50 billion a year. So they need more money for the military because were in too many places for too long, we have no exact mission of why were there, and it is not a militarily winnable situation in afghanistan. There will never be a victory in afghanistan. There may be a negotiated settlement, and they may flee when we come, but as soon as we leave, they come back. Are we to be there forever . For the umpteenth time, congress is going to exceed their budget caps. We had something passed back in 2010 that was called paygo. It was supposed to say if youre going to pay new money, you had to go find an offset somewhere else. You could only pay as you go. It was sort of like a family would think about. If youre going to spend some more money, you either have to raise your income or you have to save some money. Do you know how many times we have evaded it since 2010 . 30some odd times. When i try to get them to Pay Attention to their own rules, three or four people will vote to Pay Attention to the rules. We are in a terrible state as a country. 20 trillion in debt is bigger than our entire economy. You wonder why the stock market is jittery . Well, one of the reasons is we do not have the capacity to continue to fund a government like this. We have been funding it with phony Interest Rates that are concocted and given to us by the federal reserve, but they arent real. What if Interest Rates become real again . Anybody remember when Interest Rates were 5 , 10 , 15 . I remember as a teenager them being 19 or 20 . But historically they have often been at least five. You know what happens to the government when our Interest Rate goes to five and they have to borrow for Social Security and medicare and all the other stuff we do . There will be a catastrophe in this country. Already Interest Rates are ticking up. The stock market is jittery. If you ask a question why, maybe it has something to do with the irresponsibility of Congress Spending money that we dont have. The bills going to exceed the budget caps by 296 billion. And thats not counting the money they dont count. All right, so these people are really, really clever. Imagine them running their fingers together and saying how can we hide stuff from the American People . How can we evade the spending caps so we can be even more irresponsible than we appear . So 296 billion is the official number, about 300 billion that will be in excess of the budget caps. Theres another 160 billion stuck into something called an overseas contingency fund. The budget caps dont apply there. So were 300 billion for two years over the budget caps, and then were another 160 billion over the caps, they just dont count it. They act as if it doesnt matter. Were just not going to count it. Then we come to catastrophes. You might say to yourself i have great sympathy for those people whose houses were flooded in texas and florida. I do. My sisters house was flooded in houston or near houston. So i have great compassion. But even for my family, i cant take the money from you or borrow it from the next generation and say heres a pot of money. Go rebuild your house. We should do it in a responsible fashion. Weve already, i think, spent 30 someodd billion on emergency relief for the hurricanes. Theres another 90 billion. You know what ive said . Instead of just plunking 90 billion down or actually printing it over at the federal reserve, or borrowing it, instead of just doing that, why dont we take the 90 billion from somewhere in the budget that it shouldnt be. People come to me all the time and want something from government. I say if you want something from government, tell me where to take it from because im not going to borrow any more. We should take it from some other place in the budget. Where do you get the 90 billion from . Ive had some suggestions. You know how many votes i get . About 10 or 15 people will vote with me. I say lets not send it to pakistan this year. They burned our flag. They put christians in jail. They put the guy in jail, a doctor afridi who helped us to find bin laden. We got bin laden. He had been living high on the hog in the middle of a town a mile or two from a military academy. Everybody probably knew he was there in the pakistani government, and he lived uninterrupted. We finally got him. When we got him dr. Afridi gave us information. You have know what pakistan did to this doctor . Hes in jail for 33 years. Ufp know what you know what ne did by a christian named bibi. She went to a well to draw water. As she was drawing water the women in the village began stoning her and beating her with sticks. As she lay on the ground bleeding and everybody watched and gawked as she lay on the ground bleeding, she was crying out for help and the police finally arrived and she thought she had been saved, only to be arrested for being a christian. Yet, weve given 33 billion to pakistan over the last decade. Good money after bad. Almost everybody up here loves it. They just want more of your money to go to pakistan, saudi arabia, china. You name it, theyll send your money anywhere. And weve got a country that needs it here. Instead of nation building abroad, why dont we build our country here at home. Why dont we do some nation building here at home. We have 90 billion that we need for emergency relief. Even as conservative as i am, i would say we could probably find that. Were a great, rich country. We can probably rebuild and the government can be part of that. You tpho he with you know wh . Why dont we quit sending it to pakistan . Quit sending it to countries who burn our flag and chant death to america. Why dont we keep that money at home. Why dont we say to the government that they have to spend a little bit less. Anybody ever have less money this year than you had last . Anybody had a 1 pay cut . You deal with it. Thats what government needs, a 1 pay cut. If you take a 1 pay cut across the board you have more than enough money to pay for the Disaster Relief but nobodys going to do that because theyre fiscally irresponsible. Who are they . Republicans. Who are they . Democrat. Who are they . Virtually the whole body is careless and reckless with your money. The money will not be offset by cuts anywhere. The money will be added to the debt, and there will be a day of reckoning. Whats the day of reckoning . The day day of reckoning may wee the collapse of the stock market. The day of reckoning may be the collapse of the dollar. When if comes, i cant tell you exactly but i can tell you it has happened repeatedly in history when countries ruin their currency, when countries become profligate spenders, when countries begin to believe that debt does not matter. Thats what this bill is about. But heres the confusion. Some at home will say we just want them to cooperate. If they would just hold hands and sing kumbaya, everything would be fine. Guess what . Thats what youve got. You saw both of the leadership of both sides opposing me because they are now clasped hand in hand, everybodys getting what they want. Everybodys getting more spending. The military, the right is getting more military spending. The left is getting more welfare spending. And youre getting stuck with the bill. Not even technically you. Its the next generation being stuck with the bill. Your grandkids are being stuck with the bill. But mark my words, the stock market is jittery. The bond market is jittery. There is an undercurrent of unease amidst this euphoria youve seen in the stock market. A country cannot go on forever spending money this way. And what youre seeing is recklessness trying to be passed off as bipartisanship. So weve gotten together. Theyre all holding hands, and theres only one bad guy standing in the way. One guy thats going to keep us here until 3 00 in the morning. You have know what . I think the countrys worth a debate until 3 00 in the morning frankly. I think it is worth a debate on whether or not we should borrow 1 million a minute. We borrow 1 million a minute. I think it brings it home. I was talking to my staff today, you know what, its almost 2 million a minute now. 2 million a minute. Can you imagine . This is exploding. This deficit is skhroegd. Exploding. There isnt the alarm you should see. Every one of these people, youll see them come home and theyll tell you how earnest they are and how the government is bad and Big Government spending is bad and we have to reduce waste. Its dishonest. Theyre not doing anything about the waste. The waste has been out there for probably half a century or more. Nothings been done in the last 40 years for one precise reason. There is no oversight. You realize what they are passing is all of the money together in one bill. No one will read the bill. No one knows whats in it. And there is no reform in the bill. That i can say with absolute certitude. No one will read it. No reform. Nothing gets better. The debt will grow. When the democrats are in power, republicans appear to be the conservative party. But when republicans are in power, it seems there is no conservative party. You see, opposition seems to bring people together, and they know what theyre not for. But then they get in power and they decide, were just going to spend that money too. Were going to send that money to our friends this time. The hypocrisy hangs in the air and chokes anyone with a sense of decency or intellectual honesty. The right cries out our military is hollowed out even though military spending more than doubled since 2001. The left is no better. Democrats dont oppose military money as long as they can get some for themselves, for their pet causes. The dirty little secret is that by and large both parties dont care about the debt. The spending bill is 700 pages, and there will be no amendments. The debate, although its somewhat inside baseball that were having here, is over me having a 15minute debate. And they say woe is me. If you get one, everybody will want an amendment. Well, that would be called debate. That would be called an open process. That would be called concern for your country, enough to take a few minutes. And theyre like but its thursday and we like to be on vacation on fridays. And so they clamor. Weve been sitting around all day. Its not like weve had 1 00 amendments today, were all worn out and cant do one more. Were going to have zero amendments. Zero, goose egg, no amendments. Its a binary choice. They love that word, its a binary choice. Take it or leave it. You tpho he what, im going to leave it. I didnt come up here for this. I didnt leave my family throughout the week and travel up here to be a part of something that is so much inertia and so much status quo that theyre not leading the country. Theyre just following along, and its a big ball rolling down a hill grabbing up your dollars as the boulder rolls down the hill it gets bigger and bigger its going to crush us. But nobody has the guts to stand up and say no. Over the past 40 years only four times have we actually done 12 individual department of government Appropriations Bills. Youve heard of like the Appropriation Committee . This is where the spending is. You have the department of defense, the department of commerce, health and human services. Were supposed to pass each individual bill, and what would happen when we pass the bills, they would go through committee and each committee would look and see, well, this spending seems to be working. Were getting a great result, and we want some more next year. And this spending appears to be, have been put in a closet and lit on fire, and so next year were not giving that person who put the 10 million in the closet and lit it on fire, were not going to give them any money. Guess what . That doesnt happen. So people keep putting your money in a closet and lighting it on fire. Youve heard about fema, this emergency organization. Youve heard about people without food. So there was like 300 million meals they needed, i believe, for puerto rico. 350 million meals. You know who got the contract . A person that had no employees. Raise your hand youre not allowed to actually. But lets say raise your hand in a figurative way if you think its a good idea to give a contract for 350 million meals to someone who has no employees, who is not already in this business. They just know how to fill out the forms in the federal government to trick us into giving them the contract. They were woefully short and there are still people waiting in line for meals. Its not even compassion or no compassion. Its idiocy versus more idiocy. We gave the money so he doesnt do this. 350 million meals. Over the past 40 years, four times have we actually done the right thing. Passed 12 individual appropriations bill, bundled them together, have a budget and try to do the right thing. There is no guarantee that everybody will be wise in their spending but its got to be better. It cant be worse. What do we do instead . Its called a continuing resolution. We glum all the bills together in one bill like weve done tonight. Republicans and democrats clasping hands. And nobodys going to look at it. Nobodys going to reform the spending. As a consequence, wasteful spending is riddled throughout your government. Only four times in 40 years have we done the appropriation process the way were supposed to. Recently they did a pentagon study. Its the beginning of an audited and they audited a part of the pentagon. This partial audit shows that 800 million was misplaced or lost. Just 800 million. I dont think they actually put it in a closet and burned it, but they cant find it. Awhile back they looked at some of the military expenditures and they had 29 billion worth of stuff they couldnt find. Overall, the audit found that over 100 billion in waste was found at the pentagon. 100 billion. Their budget is like 700 billion. You know, were talking about a significant, over a 10 , you know, problem with figuring out waste. It doesnt get better because we dont vote on these things individually and dont parse out the difference. Ill give you another example. The department of defense last year, we found this out, spent 45 million on a natural gas gas station in afghanistan. 45 million. It was projected to cost 500,000. 86someodd of cost overruns. 45 million. Youre scratching your head and saying natural gas gas station. What is that . We dont have one in my town. We dont have one in my town either. They didnt have any in afghanistan. They decided they needed to reduce the Carbon Footprint of afghanistan. All right. They want to reduce the Carbon Footprint of afghanistan. I thought the militarys job was to kill the enemy. The militarys job now is to reduce their Carbon Footprint . So they bought a 45 million gas station that serves up natural gas, and guess what they discovered . They kept waiting. There is a guy sitting next to the pump. You can imagine him sitting on a stool and waiting for customers. No one ever came. Then someone said oh my goodness, they dont have cars that run on natural gas. That would probably be the same if you came to my town in kentucky. Almost nobody has a car in america. They live in a primitive state in afghanistan and yre expecting them to have natural gas cars. They said gosh, we already built this 45 million gas station, maybe we should buy them cars. So they put a some cars with your money, then the people still wouldnt come in. They said, we dont have any money. They said, okay, weve got your gas stations, we got your cars, and we gave them credit cards. Take that card to the natural gas station because were reducing the Carbon Footprint. When did that become the job of the military. Why does that go on year after year after year, the he was . The waste. For years we have been trying to get the pentagon to be audited. You know their response . Were too big to be audited. Hows that for your government. That is just not your business. Is it any wonder, really, it surprises, is it any wonder that our debt is a 20 trillion debt . So 50 years ago william proxmi wrench was proxmire gave out the Golden Fleece award. This was 50 years ago. The reason i wanted to point this out because as you listen, you will find some of the stuff were doing today is just as bad as 50 years ago. Some of it is the same agencies. So you say, 50 years . They are still not learning anything from finding this waste. Some testify is the budget process, the process that we pass these enormous bills that no one reads, no one scrutinizes and do not reform the spending. William proxmire would do the Golden Fleece award. And i remembered this from the 1970s. This is some of the best. The National Science foundation spent 84,000 trying to find out why people fall in love. Now that sounds like a worthwhile science front with a specific answer. I think the conclusion was they are not exactly sure. The National Science foundation, which you will see is a recurring theme, also spent 500,000 to try to determine why rats, monkeys, and humans bite and why they clench their jaw. You could say all of that is really important. Maybe well discover something from that or you could say, if were running a deficit, maybe some of this is not worthwhile to borrow the money for. This is a good one, the federal Aviation Administration spent 55,000 studying the body measurements of what they called in those days airline stewardesses, it was for the purpose of purchasing their safety equipment, but somebody got 55,000 to measure the bodies of airline stewardesses. This is still from William Proxmire. Millions of dollars were spent to find out if drunk fish were more aggressive than sober fish. I will let you ponder that one. This is your government. This surmoney. Is this the debt youre handing on to your kids and grandkids. This is 50 years ago. Well get to some of the things weve been doing more recently. We do a waste report where we point some of these things out and every week we have a new one. If you want to look at our waste report, we have it on facebook and the website. You remember when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon . He said one small step for man some said one small step for a man. There has been heated discussion. Was it one step for man or a man. The prep sition a, did he or did he not use the prep sition a . So their government took 700,000 which was supposed to go to autism research, and they decided to study Neil Armstrongs statement. Somebody at some university decided to play the tape over and over. 700,000 later, they couldnt decide. We still dont know, did he say a man or man . This is the same kind of stuff you have seen with William Proxmire 50 years ago, but this was last year. I think i will probably get some hate mail from them. So this is 850,000 and we call this one the game of waste. This was spent you know, you think when were spending money in afghanistan, surely its to kill the enemy. Sometimes its building bridges. Sometimes it building roads. Stuff that we dont do in our country anymore. This one was 850,000 for the development of a televised contradict league. You see Cricket League. We want them to able to watch the National Sport on tv. We spent 850,000 to get it televised. The only thing we didnt reckon, it was like the natural gas cars, they p didnt have tv dhent have tvs they didnt have tvs. We spent 850,000 to get a Cricket League televised in afghanistan. This is a good one. Everybody likes to take a selfy, right . If you dont do them, your kids or grandkids will do it. This is a study to tell if taking selfies will make you happy, if you look at yourself, does it make you happy. Inquiring minds want to know. If you want to study that, good for you. Go get somebody to imi you to give you money to study that. I would like you to go around knocking on doors find out if a selfie makes you happy. Theyll say, but, sir, it is science and you are just a lay person and dont understand how important selfies can be and youre not qualified to talk about selfies because you dont know about happiness. We have experts who can tell the world we can be happy if we all had selfies. They tell us that somehow were not smart enough to have common sense. But this goes on decade after decade. The school lunch program. You might say, well, you know, we need to help those who cant buy a school lunch. We have a school lunch program. We discover 158 million, federal money, was given to a Los Angeles School district and it turns out they were which iing they were buying other things than lunches. No one was doing the individual appropriation bills. They were passing continuing resolutions, and when nobody reads it they buy sprinklers, new televisions for the faculty to watch. 158 million not spent on School Lunches but spent on other items. Everybodys heard about Climate Change and theres undertones and overtones about Climate Change. If case you havent heard about Climate Change, the people who want you to hear about Climate Change want you to make sure you spend money. They spent 450,000 on a video game. This is also the National Science foundation. So a generation will be able to play a video game on Climate Change. It is complete with great graphics and we have a great game your kids can play on Climate Change. Its one thing after another. All right. You may have been on this one if youre in washington. This one we call street car named waste. Theres a street car over here a few blocks on h street and they spent 1. 6 million on it. I think they spent more on it before that. It goes a mile from nowhere to nowhere. And you get on and nobodys on it. It costs a fortune. You could walk from one end to the another in the time it takes to go on this tramway. And so but, you know, 1. 6 million. When you see this Government Spending, would you give money to this . And i asked this question often when im home. I ask people, if you had 100 to give to help people, would you give to the Salvation Army or the federal government to spend on a street car that no one rides . So i talked about whether or not we should be spending the money somewhere else or here. This is 250,000 that was spent on bringing 24 kids from pakistan to space camp and dolly wood. You can say, we will have good relations with pakistan. Im not against interaction. If this were some kind of privately funded group that wanted to have some money to have interaction between us and pakistan, i would be for it. First the price tag is scary. 250,000 for 24 kids, but then i also think, i represent a lot of people in kentucky who dont have the money to drive down to huntsville and go to space camp with their kids. Should we not start thinking that we need to take care of ours at home before we ship our money overseas . Do we need to think about can we afford to keep borrowing money for projects like this . This is the department of defense, and think i think we referred to earlier. This was the 29 million worth of heavy equipment that they lost in afghanistan. You see, they lost that, but we also made the decision as we were downgrading the war in afghanistan after the last surge we did in afghanistan, that we didnt want the other side to have our stuff, so we blew up billions of dollars of tax, you name it t anks, you name it. When they counted it up, they couldnt find 29 million worth. If you think about it and thinking how could we have more money for both our National Defense and have more money for infrastructure, you hear people talk about infrastructure. Republicans and democrats want to build roads, but guess what, theres no money. Were 1 trillion short this year because we passed this clash pans, spend whatever you can, both sides spend it like theres no tomorrow. But you say, how could we change our government . Where would in be money we could actually save . Some of it is in our foreign policy. We dont have enough for our military to be involved in seven wars. We might have enough to be involved in three, two, or one or maybe we shouldnt be involved in any. We said after 9 11 we would go after those who attacked us, they are all dead. We should declare victory. Right now were over there nation building. Why do we have trouble with nation building . Ill give you a story from a navy seal i met a couple of years ago. He had been in 19 years. He was a tough guy, like they all are, and he said, you know what, we can go anywhere, kill any of our enemies, we can do whatever you ask us to do. But the mistake is when the politicians tell us to plant the flag and create a country, were not very good at it. Most in the military dont want to create countries. They assume kill the enemy and come back to their family. But we kill the enemy and then we stay and stay and stay. There have been some schools built four or five times and the tax bill blows it the taliban blows it up. Dont they have some responsibility after we give them 1 trillion to do something for themselves. Will people do something for themselves if you keep doing it for them . Really there has to come a time when we come home. Spend 50 trillion a year in afghanistan. It is money that could be spent on infrastructure if you wanted to do that or maybe not having a trillion dollar deficit next year. Were in a bunch of different places. When the soldiers were killed in niger, a country in africa, many people didnt know where the country was much less that we had 800 troops there. You say thats not much but the problem is it becomes 800,000 or 80,000. Because we get in the middle of a civil war and some of our guys get kill and say, gosh, we have to do more, not less. They want to punish the enemy. I dont know who the good people or bad people are in niger, so i think it is unclear who the good guys and bad guys are. We have been involved in the syrian war, and we aided the moderate syrian rebels. It turns out they were jihadists often. They hated israel. The only people they hated as bad as israel was us many we gave antitank weapons to one group and the leader of the group said we wanted them to fight isis, they said we want to attack assad and when we attack assad, we want to attack israel. We poured hundreds of tons of weapons with of with gatar, running through the united air emirates. Poured it in there. A lot wound up in the wrong hands. We spent 250 million training ten of them. We trained ten fighters for 250 million. We sent them into battle and they were captured in the first 30 minutes. Guess what happened recently . And i will give President Trump some credit for this. They decided to ally with whoever was fighting the best over there and turned out the kurds were, both the syrian current and the current that live in iraq. And they did fight. Now the question is, oh, no, turkey is unhappy with that so well throw the kurds under the bus in favor of turkey that has a leader that has no use for us at this point either. Its very, very confusing who the enemy is and who our friends are over there. But its also very, very expensive. I think we have to defend ourselves and we may occasionally have to i a tack the enemy overseas. But the thing is, if we go and say for decade and decade, you know, in iraq they said we didnt stay long enough. How long is long enough . A hundred years, 200 years . Forever . They said theyre going to treat us as liberators. They see u us as occupiers. They didnt like the British Occupying them. They dont like us there. There was a movie with the depiction of the scene not too long ago. They were in a village and freed the village. The general was telling them how youre free, youre free. The elders of the village gathered and said, will you leave now . Because they realized that wasnt the end and that eventually the americans would leave. When me left, the taliban would come back. We just have to rethink are we going to be at war forever . Can we afford it and maybe do we have to think about maybe whether or not we should do some nation building here at home and not always abroad. We have to think about the unintended consequences of what we do as well. And ill give you an example of that. We give we just recently signed a deal for give saudi arabia 50 billion worth of equipment. Saudi arabia is using that equipment to encircle and blockade a country next to them, yemen. Yemen is a very poor country. They import about 80 of their food. Theyre one of the poorest countries on the planet and currently 17 Million People live on the edge of starvation. But people have convinced themselves that, well, theres some shia that are supported by iran. We dont want iran there so we have to support the sunnis. We have to remember who attacked us on 9 11. It was the sunnis. The ones that are trying to get into our country i dont know of any shiite terrorists. Weve had plenty of sunnis. All 16 hijackers were from saudi arabia. We just released documents last year, the missing pages from the saudi arabia investigation with the 9 11 commission that shows that theres a possibility they were complilings sit in those things complicit in those things. Theyre not exactly a free country. Theyre a monarchy thats actually having power consumed and concentrated in one persons hands more and more. So we have to decide what wars do we need to be involved in. Our founders were very clear about this. Our founders didnt like war, by the way. Our founders had seen virtually perpetual war in europe. Everybody was always fighting somebody and went on even after the founding of our country. Cousins were fighting cousins. Fathers fighting brothers. Brothers fiefting brothers. Fighting brothers. Everybody was related. All the royal families of europe were related and always fighting with each other. Of course they didnt do the fighting. They sent the common man to do the fighting. When we got to our country, we said we have these oceans. We want less war. One of the things they included in the constitution was this. They included in the constitution a specific provision that said when we go to war, we have to declare war. It has to be passed by congress. So there was a debate over whether that power should be in congress or should be in the hands of the president. Madison said this. He said that the executive, the president , is the branch most prone to war. Therefore, with studied care, we gave that power to the legislature. So war is supposed to be determined by us and ultimately us as representatives of you. It doesnt happen that way and hasnt happened that way for a long time. Why are we at war in seven different place . S we dont vote on it. We havent voted on anything since the proclamation of the iraq war which i think was a mistake but we at least voted on it in 2002. We voted in 2001 to go into afghanistan. We havent voted on anything. They said the 2001 proclamation gives us the power to go anywhere because these people can somehow tang general yally most people fighting werent even born and had nothing to do with 9 11 and afghanistan. Once again its the process thats broken like the budget. So we have extraordinary waste and your money gets burned and put in a closet and thrown down a waste hole because we dont do the right process of following your money and war is somewhat the same way. We get involved in war in too many places because we dont have a vigorous debate. When we go to war, i tell people, that should be the most important decision we ever make. Most important decision a legislator ever makes. This should be a profound, moral, personal decision as if your kids are going or as if you were going. And it should be a heartfelt debate and everybody should speak out and we should try to figure out whether its right to go to war. Interestingly, when weve been attacked, weve been nearly unanimous. When we were attacked at pearl harbor, they voted. I think one person opposed it in congress and everybody else voted for it. When we were attacked on 9 11, same thing. I would have voted for that response. We should have responded. It was the right thing. We voted. We did the right thing. Since then were at war everywhere in countries most of us havent heard of fighting on one side or the other and we dont know what were fighting for and it costs an extraordinary amount of money but were not voting on it. Maybe if we did the right thing, maybe like appropriations we passed the appropriation bills, maybe like war we voted on it, we wouldnt be in so many places. But theyre all interconnected to the shortness we have in money. The last thing ill get to is something called the debt ceiling. The debt ceiling is something that has been a limitation on how much we spend and we have to vote on it. Its an unpleasant vote. And so they try to either do it for a long period of time or try to stretch it beyond elections. So this bill, the 700page bill that no one read that will continue all the spending and will not reform your government and is irresponsible, the one we will pass later tonight, the 700page bill also allows the debt ceiling to go up. Historically we would let the debt ceiling, our borrowing limit, we would let it go up a dollar amount. Wed say, well, weve got to borrow money. It looks like were going to need a trillion dollars. You know the way they do it now . Its like Everything Else around here. We then break the rules and somehow theres a little bit of deviousness to it. The debt ceiling will go up in unspecified amount. As much as you can borrow between now and november, go for it. Theres no elimination. The debt ceiling becomes not a limitation at all. Theyre still taking a vote. Maybe they dont want to vote on it anymore. They just want it to happen. They say they voted for the spending. I think the more obstacles we have in place the debt ceiling will go up in an unspecified amount. There will be a credit card issued for the United States that has no limits. This is a problem. Everything about this stinks, to tell you the truth. Everything about this process and the media doesnt get it. The media does you such a disservice. They cant understand whats going on sometimes. Theyre like, bipartisanship is broken out. Hallelujah. Republicans and democrats are getting along and in reality they should be telling you look for your wallet. Check your pants to make sure they havent taken your wallet. Because when both parties are happy and both parties are getting together and doing stuff, guess what . Theyre usually looting the treasury. And thats what this bill does. Its going to loot the treasury. It spends money we dont have. We will have a trillion dollar deficit this year. A trillion dollars. And what i would say to my republican colleagues, you dont see them here. Im not sure where they are. What i would say to my republican colleagues, i know every one of you, i know every one of you, ive seen your speeches. I saw every one of you go after president obama. Was that all just empty partisanship . Do you not really believe it . Every one of them in their states, i promise you every one of them went home and probably will go home next week and say how theyre fiscally conservative and against the debt and almost all of them are going to vote for this new debt. Almost all of them are going to vote for a trillion dollar debt in one year. Every one of the republicans at least was against president obamas debt. At least the democrats are honest. Theyre not too concerned about the debt. Well, they are sometimes. Theyre concerned about the debt when it comes to taxes. Because they dont want people to keep more of their own money. Theyre afraid somehow of the imbalance of that. But the thing is that we do have to watch the balance of money, how much comes in and goes out. And some have said, well, how can you be a deficit hawk if you voted for the tax cut . Well, one, because i think you own your labor. You own the fruits of your labor. You own all of it. You give up some of your labor to live in a civilized world. So my question to you is that everything you make, everything you own, everything that comes from the sweat of your brow and the work of your hands is yours. And if you give up some, youre giving up your liberty. And you give up a little bit of your liberty, you give up a little bit of your wages to life in a civil advised civilized world, to have law and order. But i ask do you want to give up more or less . Do you want to give up a hundred percent of your paycheck or 10 of your paycheck . We should always be about minimizing government. So taxes really are about how much of your liberty you get to keep, how much liberty to continue to spend your own money. The other side is spending. Are we going to have Government Spending . Yes. The constitution laid out very specific requirements for what it was allowed to do. Article 1, section 8 says what congress can do. Theyre very few and limited. Yet what happened over time is that we began doing a lot of things that arent there. What they said in the bill of rights was pretty important, though, in the ninth and tenth amendment. The ninth amendment says those rights not listed are still yours and not to be disparaged. So the bill of rights was not a complete listing of your rights. You have many other rights, such as the right to privacy, the right to property, that arent exactly spelled out in the first eight amendments. But then the tenth amendment said something really important, too. It said if the constitution didnt explicitly give that power to the federal government, its left to the states and the people respectively. So many of the things we do up here and this is the other reason for our debt. There are checks and balances within the process. Were supposed to do appropriation bills and all that. That might or might not work. It cant be worse than what were doing now. But the real check and balance is the constitution. So the constitution has these limits on how Big Government can get and what government can do. And if we obey the constitution, you would have a balanced budget every year. If you had a balanced budget every year, would there still be things the government does . Sure. But we have to assess as a people, we have to decide and really this is the ultimate decision the American People have to have, are you going to cheer for the republicans and Democrats Holding hands and having a trillion dollar deficit . Or are you going to say to yourself, umm, im suspicious that the republicans and democrats are collapsing hands clasping hands and giving us a trillion dollar deficit. Are we so excited about civility that we dont care what the result of civility is . Or are we really sort of misguided in thinking because people arent yelling at each other and they have bridged their differences but that the compromise means that were all going to spend more money, were going to ignore the constitution, the waste is going to continue on and nothing will be fixed, are we so sold on civility that were willing too give up on and say, oh, well, at least were getting along together. As long as were getting along, thats all we want. I think were smarter than that. I think the American People are more perceptive. I think the American People are going to see through it and see it as the future unfolds, at the stock market continues to be jittery. I think theyre going to see it as we move forward and the ramifications of having so much debt come home. This could be higher Interest Rates and those affect not only you personally but can also affect the massive Government Programs we have, Social Security and medicare. The borrowing that we do for our interest is one of the larger items. I think its the Third Largest item that we spend right now. And so as Interest Payments grow, it crowds out other things. So right now weve got, you know, were still paying government interest probably in the low twos, 2 or more. Even if interest stays at 2 , because government is growing and we have a bigger and bigger dealt, were going to have an 800 billion Interest Payment and it will be the number one item. Its going to crowd out Everything Else. So there are ramifications. There are people who say that when youre at a hundred percent of your g. D. P. Like your whole economy when your whole economy equals your debt, that youre at this sort of precipice. Youre at a point where you may reach a point of no return. There are ways to fix this. Later this year ill offer a budget that frees up spending. You say, well, how bad could that be . Were just going to give the government the same amount they had last year. If you freeze all spending, everything that we spend on, you balance the budget within about five or six years. And youd get things back in balance if you did it. But if you talk to people up here, they would freak out. I promise you, well probably get ten or 15 votes for freezing spending to try to get it back in order. But this is what we have to ask as American People. Are you happy with your government . Are you happy with trillion dollar deficits . Are you happy with people who just dont seem to care . They care somehow more about this clasping hands and everybody gets everything and you get to get home for the weekend . But i think the ramifications for our country are severe and significant. And what i would ask my colleagues as well as those across the country is basically, what do you want from governme government do you want some physical item . Is government here so government can give you some physical item, a cell phone or car . Is that what government is for or is government here to preserve your liberty . Most of us, i would say some of us believe your rights are from god, that they preexist government, and that really governments job is not to get you stuff. Governments job is not to get somebody elses stuff for you. Governments job is to preserve your liberty, to preserve your natural godgiven rights. And in doing that, you may acquire through your liberty and through your hard work, you may acquire stuff and the government helps to praoepbt your neighbor from stealing it but your government shouldnt be the one stealing it from your neighbor and giving it to you. We look at the ramifications of a society where we do think that were going to take from one and give to the other and were going to do it through this government transfer program, when we look atta we ask look at that we ask is that good for the person. A friend of mine says selfesteem cannot be given to you. People say we immediate to have everybody get we need to have everybody get a trophy, everybody gets first place. Whether johnny can read, we need to pat johnny on the back and make johnny feel good about whether he can or cannot read. In reality it comes from achievement. Weve had talk about merit immigration. Theres merit to hard work, picking tomatoes. Theres merit to being a doctor, a lawyer, a professor. Theres merit to so many jobs. And thats also where your selfesteem comes from. One of the things weve done in our country is we are destroying the selfesteem and motivation of the country. What goes along with that . When youve destroyed your selfesteem and you no longer leave your house, weight problems, drug problems, all the things that ensue from that. People say youre simplifying addiction. It doesnt all come from Big Government. Maybe, maybe not. But i think theres a correlation. Theres a correlation to not working and the disease that comes from nonwork. You say youre heartless. Youre just saying that, that everybody should work and there are not jobs. There virtually are full employment now. We have less than 4 unemployment. And yet, where we measure it, we still have communities that have 30 nonworkers because theyre no longer counted in this. This is where a lot of problem exists in our society. A lot of drug problem is coming from nonworkers. And so i think we have to reflect on what we want from government. Do you want something material from government . Do you want government to give you something that your neighbor has that you dont have . Or do you want government to protect your godgiven liberty . And i think if we realize that the abstraction of liberty is something amazing and incredible, and thats what our government is about, maybe we would bicker less and we would become more unified as a people knowing what youre trying to get is not something, you know, they talk about whether coveting something is a bad thing. You know, when you covet, you really want something of somebody elses. Some of it is because its somebody elses, but some of it is p because its a material thing you want instead of the freedom, the freedom to search and seek out through work and through life and through art and through literature your own bit of selfesteem. I think if we knew what government was about and we recognize the true function of government we wouldnt be in this state. But i can tell you that im very, very saddened by where we are. Im saddened mostly by the debate on my side. I disagree with the other side, but i know where they are as far as these are concerned. Im saddened on my side that many people who give lip service to believing and saying when theyre home were fiscal conservatives, well vote for a bill that adds 1 trillion to the debt. Continuing if we were honest with ourselves, we would say no, the government would shut down. I dont want the government would shut down. I think its a dumb idea. I proposed legislation called the Government Shutdown protection act. What my legislation would do is this, you have a year to do your appropriations bill. Theres 12 different units of government. Its your job, thats what youre supposed to do. You say how do we make these people do their job if they wont do their job . What we say is over that 12month people, we say if you dont do your job, government will continue spending but government will continue spending 1 less. So government would go on spending 99 of what they spent the last year. But every 90 days wed take 1 more from government until the people in government decide to do their job. I see some members of the house, they did their job last year. They passed all 12 appropriations bill. Yet, the senate i think we finally in the end passed one four or five months into the fiscal year. I think if you looked at it that way and you said how can we convince congress to do its job, thats part of the answer, passing the individual Appropriations Bills but evaluating them for waste and being concerned with waste. Also important is understanding the function of government, the powers of government are few, defined, and limited. That was a big thing that madison talked about. When you read the federalist papers hes talking about how there are very specific functions of government. Government wasnt supposed to do everything. Theres nothing in the constitution about education. You say oh my god, he would get the federal government out of the education system. Absolutely. Get them completely out. The constitution said nothing about them being in, and we dont have the money for it and the State Governments are better at it. It doesnt say the State Government cant be involved. But the federal government shouldnt be involved at all in education. We took our responsibility that wasnt in the constitution. We dont pay for it. And as a consequence, our government gets bigger and bigger. We take on new functions of government that really were never spelled out in the constitution. Department of commerce, it could be gone. Youd never know it probably. But it could be gone, youd save 35 billion and most of its functions are not in the constitution. We have to have some of that debate over what is the proper role, what is the constitutional role, and how would we have that debate if were not allowed to amend the bill, if were given a 700 page bill the night before, nobody reads it and they say its done. Its a binary choice, their favorite word, binary choice. Take it or leave it. Im leaving it. Ill have nothing to do with adding a 1 trillion debt. I could not go home and look my wife in the face. I could tpho go home and look my friends in the face. I could not go home and look for anybody who voted for me and look them in the face and say, president obama, he was terrible, 1 trillion deficits as far as the eye could see. The republican deficits theyre not quite as bad because theyre just 1 trillion. Thats what were doing here. The republican side is telling america 1 trillion deficits are bad when they are democrats but theyre okay when theyre republicans. Theyre telling you deficits are, theyre bad when the other guys do it but theyre not so bad when we do it. This is the height of hypocrisy and maybe the uncomfortableness that this debate engenders and having this uncomfortableness is maybe why we dont want to have amendments. Its sort of backfiring because im going to talk about this for quite awhile and were going to vote at 3 00 in the morning because they wouldnt let me have a vote during the day. And i probably wont get a vote. But i think its sort of misguided. We should have had 20 votes. There are votes democrats wanted that i probably disagree with and probably would have voted no on but i would have voted to let them have amendments. This is a big deal. This is our spending. You know, this is what the congress is supposed to do is assess our spending and how much we do and yet were not going to have amendments to it . Its predecided by some secret cabal of leader from both sides who have clasped hands to say we have won. The country has won. We now have a 1 trillion deficit this year. The American People are losing by this. And so i think we have to figure out a better way. We have to figure out a way where we do our job, which is each of the individual appropriations bill. We look and we scrutinize waste. I showed you some of the William Proxmire Golden Fleece awards from 1968. The same agency that went through that money is still here. Their budget is probably tenfold bigger than it was in 1968 and were still doing the c. I. A. Still doing the crazy stuff. Heres a good one from the same group of people that brought you Neil Armstrong and 00,000 700,000 to study what did he say, one small step for man, one large step for mankind. These people wanted to know are japanese quail more promiscuous than cocaine. I wish there was a button and we could ask people to dial in and push a button, do you think japanese quail are more sexually promiscuous on cocaine. We spent 350,000 it studying this. Why do we do this every year . Why doesnt it get any better . We dont look at it. If you have a 700page bill and nobody looks at it, how are you ever going to find this . Even in an appropriations bill, if we did an appropriations bill that included this it would still be 500 pages long and youd have to hunt long and hard to find this. Why do we have conditions on how you spend your money . We dont look at it. Nobody reads these bills. People come to my office and they say im for legal aid and i think people should be able to have a lawyer and poor people should get help. And ill listen to them and ill say i never voted on that. I probably will never vote on that. I wont even vote on the department of government that oversees legal aid because im given a 700 page bill that has all of the Government Spending. Whats ironic about this is we have dozens and dozens of people who come to our Office Every Day saying we like this part of government. And i say well, i never get to vote on it so i dont know if i can help you or hurt it because i never get to vote on that part of government. They make me vote on all of government. Its either all or none. The binary choice is shut it down or keep it open but dont reform it. I think its a terrible choice. I did a hearing this week and i called it the terrible, rotten, nogood way to run your government. Thats what i believe. Its a terrible, rotten, nogood way to run your government and we shouldnt do it. This is a secret so dont tell anyone. When i talk to people, i talk to probably 50 senators in the last three weeks, and you know what most of them say . We kind of agree with you, its a really crummy way. This is the last time im voting for it. I say didnt you tell meal that last year . Didnt i hear that the year before it was your last c. R. Youre efrl voting for . Youre ever voting for . Youre never going to vote for another one. You know what would happen. Lets say this speech was so persuasive that all my colleagues came in here, got a conscience and voted down this spending and said hooey with all of you, were not to not spend all that money, the government was shut down and wed come down on monday and do our job. Wed start looking at each individual items and wed say these are the things we shouldnt spent it on spend it on and these are the things we should. If you pass one appropriations bill you dont have to worry about the other part. Once you pass the defense appropriations bill, you dont have to worry about that shutting down. Each time you pass an appropriations bill, you move on to another. We have to do that. I think the thing thats disappointing is probably everybody in here, republican and democrat, will tell you it is a terrible way to run the government. Yet were doing it. We did it a week ago and we did it three weeks ago. We did it a month ago. This is the fourth time weve done it this year. Since ive been here we have never passed all the appropriations bill. We have never had extended debate in committees. I was thinking about this the other day and i was thinking what if the first day you got sworn in, the leadership sat in the chair and all 100 people were required to be here and requested strongly to be here and we had a frank discussion, and we said to both sides this is the year im not doing any continuing resolutions. And guess what . It will just shut down if we dont. But were going to do our job and in the first three months of the fiscal year well have hearing and the main job of the hearings will be to authorize and appropriate the money. Three months for each committee. That would be a pretty long time and maybe spend a whole week or two weeks in the committee with amendments with specific things like weve decided this year not to study what cocaine does for japanese quail. This would be the year we finally stop doing that. Youd have that debate and youd have three months on committees. Youd have nine months left to do the spending bills. Then youd say if you were sitting in the chair, youd say to everyone this is the way were going it go to do it. Then each appropriations bill, were going to take three weeks on the floor to do it. Three weeks. Were not going to put ter around, obfuscate and not have any amendments until this is what were doing. The one reason were going to send this over to the house at midnight is were hoping theyre too tired to vote no. Were going to send it over late tonight or 3 00 in the morning maybe is when its going to be sent over. Its purposefully done. We dont do amendment. We dont do anything in a timely fashion. We wait around until very end and in the very end we try to wear people out so they dont scrutinize the spending. Lets say you do Committee Hearings nor three months. For nine months you did Appropriations Bills. You spend two or three weeks on the floor and let people bring amendments. My First Amendment would be bringing the National Science foundation is no longer able to do the stuff they were able to do. Give them less money, half as much, 25 . A lot less because they are spending a lot on things they shouldnt be doing. This goes throughout government. We had this debate with the post office. Theyre losing 1 billion a quarter. Thats quite a bit of money. They came before our committee and they said we need to, we need to pay them sufficiently. You cant have good quality people unless you pay them. They wanted to pay the top guy like 1 million, 1. 5 million. I said to keep talent . How much talent does it take to lose 1 billion a quarter . Ill do it for less than that. I can lose 500,000 for less. The ridiculous notion of government. Sometimes i think is it the people in government or is government populated by people who are inherently stupid . I dont think so. I think there are wellmeaning people in government. They are not inherently stupid but they dont get the right and proper incentives. Think about it in your life, if i were to ask for 10,000 each, and i have this business proposition, will you go give me the 10,000. If you give it to me, you probably have a pang hoping that you get it back and you get your money back. It is really a heartfelt decision. It doesnt make it always the right decision, but it is heartfelt and if you struggle with every fiber of your being to make sure it is the right choice even though it is not always right. In government, remember your city counsel person, 10,000, its not their money. Then you go to state legislature, its not 10,000, its 2 million. Then you get up here and its 2 million or maybe 200 billion. Its not their money. When you look at government and say, why is government so bad . Bill friedman militariton Milton Friedman hit it on the head. Government will never be efficient because of the very nature of government. Its not an argument for no government, but its an argument for minimizing how Big Government is. It shouldnt be part of something that the private sector can do because the government will never be as efficient. Nobody spends somebody elses money as wisely as their own. Until we recognize that, which goes hand in hand with what the founders thought. The founders thought people ought to be left me to do free to do most of the things themselves. They limited what the federal government would do. As we move forward in this debate and as we look at what can be dont do bring back the greatness of this country, i think we do have to be worried about the debt were accumulating. My hope is that both sides of the aisle will look long and hard and say this isnt the way we should run our government and not just say this and say next time, but maybe say this time because i promise you both sides of the aisle have told me this week, its a terrible way to run the government. Youre exactly right, continuing resolutions, putting all the spending in one bill and not getting rid of the waste but almost everybody who told me that this week will vote for it. The only way to get it fixed is you have to call these people and have them do their job, do the individual appropriation bills, Pay Attention to the constitution, or, frankly, you need new people. Thats what they have decided, do you need new people or are you happy with them borrowing 1 trillion . I think is it irresponsible. It is something that no American Family would do, i dont care if your independent, democrat, republican, a family wouldnt do this. As we look at this debate, my hope subpoena that both sides will come together and say, enoughs enough. This is the time, tonight i say senator rand paul from earlier tonight when he was blocking anything from moving forward in the senate. The continuing resolution to fund the government for a short term. Deal, bothar budget of which have managed to pass in the senate in the last hour. A tweet from christina peterson, the budget deal and continuing resolution passing, which means it goes on to the house. An update from mike emanuel from the house, they expect the next vote in the house to occur at 5 00 a. M. 0 a. M. To the special lights on the clock mean the house is in recess. They are waiting the budget package from the senate to come over. Then the house will reconvene. We will take your phone calls. We want to hear your thoughts. The Government Shutdown at this point, in about two hours 15 minutes. The lines are on your screen. Independence and others. A fourth special line for federal workers. A look at a couple more tweets. One from the hail from the , showing the shutdown for a second time in less than a month. The Los Angeles Times writing that the senate wrapping up here, passing the budget deal in a big bipartisan vote. On the rand paul shutdown. He wanted attention, and he got attention. One more here, politico writing that senator shelby told trains,s hanging out in somebody has to be getting their moneys worth out of you guys. Taking your phone calls. We want to hear your reaction. The Senate Making it step toward ending the shutdown that is in place, passing a twoyear budget and a shortterm continuing resolution. Now the ball is in the houses court. A call from shelley in massachusetts, republican line. The morning. Are you with us . Good morning, go ahead. [indiscernible] we are having a hard time hearing you. I will put you on hold. Maybe there is something wrong with your line. I will try to get back to you. Moving on to jacksonville, north carolina. Can you hear us . Go ahead. Shelley, do i have you . We were having some problems with the line. Caller im very proud of rand paul. Grandfather was become troller of the courts in charge of a lot of things in government in philadelphia. Stood with rand paul very courageously. I was in a meeting with people they were talking about crypto currencies and the development of that. It reminds me of unfortunate turns in history, people focusing on the building of the ear canal. When they got done with the fury and discussion and were upset over that, the railroads had come in place to replace that. Here we are arguing about things that will be a dinosaur in the moments of history that are approaching when the stock market crashes. Crypto currency will replace it. It was on a roller coaster and has been discounted as something foolish. On boarde are jumping saying this is how it will go. I heard in a meeting i was in, thisssful executives that will not be able to be taxed, which means the government and irs will lose their function and event an ability to tax people to such a large extent, and might cause the irs to lose its power and importance. That means you have gone into a world or in c. We are focusing on other things in fighting among ourselves. The statement was remitted made repeatedly no one who has developed a crypto currency. It is dangerous. I appreciate your call. I want to get more calls in. Caller thank you so much for taking my call. Paul is amazing. Especially at this critical time. For the economy to include everything he has stated is phenomenal. No matter if youre a democrat or republican, independent, or is no way to listen to his speech and not see the truth in , includinghe says the phenomenal charts he was able to illustrate on the spending of our government. We should not be overlooked. It is ridiculous to live in the greatest country in the world with the most resources, yet they do not have the ability to make conscious decisions that role the government of the world. We are living in a different time. I am looking forward to decisions that will be made. Host texas i have matthew on the line. High matthew. Caller i want to talk about bitcoin or rand paul. I would like to say rand paul was a lecturer fine. I think all the American People should understand the process. They dont understand what a continuing resolution is. It is continuously funding government. They need to understand how individual appropriations work, and how people in the government should look at funding. And look at the wasteful spending in these departments. Sinceted it is 40 years several individual appropriations have been approved. It is insane that we cant have a process that people do not understand these continuing resolutions fund all this waste in our country that attributes to so many potential he lost dollars. You for the call. If anybody mr. Rand paul, you can find it online at cspan. Org. We showed his comments a little while ago. Lets take a look at this tweet. The washington post. Has the shutdown started in louisiana or another three hours . Alaska . Why . Is your day ahead of you looking like . It is looking a little uncertain. We go through this every few months with the republican and democrats deciding whether to keep the government open or not. And i didrand paul agree with some things he said. I also remembered when they were discussing the Tax Reform Act in december, he was all for it. Now he has amnesia. I do not understand, what is the problem now . Why does he need amendments in order to keep the government open . The last time i checked, he will still get paid if the government is open. Im a little confused with this whole deal. What is going on with why he is so opposed to this bill . I dont understand. Host what are your plans for the morning ahead . This point, i dont know. I am in limbo. I have to stay up to figure out if im going to have a job tomorrow. Wait for aide to phone call from my supervisor to let me know if i can come to work. Host did you get that call a few weeks ago from your supervisor . That exact same thing. We are getting penalized because congress cannot get their decisions together. It is ridiculous. They are kicking the can down the road. There is nothing being fixed. Taking your phone calls. We expect the house to be coming in now that the senate has a continuing resolution, shortterm funding for the government, and a twoyear budget. Expecting the house to come in and do its part. That the earlier not sound that sure whether they would have enough votes in the house to pass. Our coverage live from the house floor here on cspan when they gaveled back in. Riverside california a call from maria on the republican line. Caller hi. Thank you for taking my call. I have to think cspan for playing rand pauls speech again. I was so angry earlier today when i heard that he was blocking everything. I thought here we go again. But then you graciously playing that again, everything he said was fantastic. I dont know. I dont know what the Freedom Caucus or anybody in the house is going to do, but i hate that my friends who are federal workers might not be going to work tomorrow. Everything he said was great. I think that they need to take up his suggestions for the coming years. And not do this anymore. I wanted to think cspan. Host thank you for your call. Tweet from foxer news. The House Rules Committee plans to meet around 2 30 this morning, in just a few minutes eastern time, to prep the parameters for the budget bill debate on the house floor. Now that the house is taking that up, we will see what comes of that. The hill writing that said mitch to begin is set immigration debate next week. That was a Sticking Point for democrats who wanted something included for the daca, deferred action for child arrivals program. Also for dreamers. Their work remits expire in early march. We want to get your thoughts. Welcome to the conversation. Caller hi. Rand paul achieved the one thing he wanted to do in this conversation as far as everyone in the country, especially when they turn on the 9 00 in thet morning, is to have a conversation about rand paul. I listened to a lot of callers who said there was good feedback, and a good conversation that he should the hypocrisy of what Senate Republicans are trying to do. Have done that in a press conference or on the floor vote. The fact that he pushed the government to the brink of a shutdown was something that heightens. Host independent line. Bruce, go ahead. In 1988, iyears ago was thehing, and it 25th anniversary of the assassination of jfk. One of my students brought in a newspaper from miami, and the first three pages were full of the assassination. But on page 30 there was a , it wasox and in it from the senate, talking about how they were worried about adding to the deficit, which would be 1 billion, and it to theirharmful children and grandchildren. I agree with rand paul, because i am 72, and i think of my daughter and granddaughter, and i do not see it ever ending. They are going to keep adding and adding. Host thank you for the call. Dave, what is your day looking like . Like i my day is looking am in leave status. Up i will be placed in up for low status. Im working for the department of the navy. Im tired of kicking the can down the road. Makes a lot of great points. Im tired of these votes in the middle of the night. Theyve had three weeks to work on the budget, aside from daca. It comes down to the middle of the night at the last minute, a 700 page bill that nobody has read. Theyve got the highlights that nobody has read it. , as adisappointing citizen, let alone a federal worker. They are there to do our bidding, and represent us. Their worknnot get done in the time allotted during normal working hours. With some of his message, but also frustration with that he helped things up . I dont mind that he helped things up. I agree with his message. It is unfortunate that his message came when it did. His message should ring true for all americans. It is about doing governments business and making the most out of the taxpayers money. Wisely, andsources not blowing their money on frivolous things. Host when this happened three weeks ago, how did things go for you . I was in an exempt status. I was required to report. For me, it did not change my condition. I had to go to work, pay or no pay. I was required to do my duty. I am a nonexempt person. This time i am different because i am in a nonpaid status. Tomorrow, i will be required to report. Off of my leave. Is going to affect my weekend plans, but i will get through it. I am tired of it being in the middle of the night every time. It is frustrating to be in this status all the time. I am ready for them to pass a budget, and that on with my business. They are there to pass the budget. Texas, democrat, brian is on the line. Caller hi. Longtime listener. Ill was watch cspan. Firsttime caller. I apologize if i sound nervous. Disagree with the way in which rand paul did it, in that, if he was so concerned about the budget, and if he was so concerned about people working tomorrow and everything, and all the things he said, then where was this argument, where was his when the the budget tax reform bill came up . Where was this fight when all the other appropriations came up, and hed did not say anything . Where is this fight for immigration . Speak and loves america so much, where is his opinions when he goes golfing with trump . Like lindsey graham, they are what i call baby romp kissers. Kissers. They kiss trumps but. ,emocrats are easy to pick on because they can blame them for being unpatriotic. Democrats for being treasonous. They blame them for everything. It takes two to tango. The budget is a problem, but both sides have been a problem when it comes to a budget. Host i appreciate you calling in for the first time. There is a tweak here mentioning remarks by the senator from kentucky rand paul. You can feel the frustration and embarrassment growing in congress as we expose the hypocrisy of republicans joining in an unholy alliance and spending freeforall with democrats at the expense of the American People, and our parties supposed principles. Nbc politics with an update on capitol hill. Majority with Steve Scalise saying they expect the next boat from the house, and the senate has just finished business, so things move over to the house now, to occur at 3 00 to 5 00 a. M. Eastern time. Caller from beaumont california, republican. Edward, hi. How are you doing this morning . Caller i missed part of what the final vote was going to be. The senate went ahead and passed. It is in the house now. The vote in the senate was 7 128. Host caller did they cut some of the funds . Host they would raise past the spending caps about 300 billion extra. More discretionary spending, 21 over the current limit, lifting the debt ceiling another year, and funding for medical research. You have any more comments . Caller they talked earlier was goingmoney we owe to be increased by another trillion. I was wondering if that was cut back. Or are they going to vote on the full amount . Host they are voting on that full amount. Billion beyond the spending caps that were put in place back in 2011, which is one of the reasons rand paul was on the floor holding up this measure. And making his point known as well. Lets get another call, st. Louis, missouri. Independent line. Caller hi. Speech. Stening to the it was the first time i heard him speak. On, on he was 100 several other things. Like he said, both parties are at fault. Hands, we need to look out. I thought it was interesting to listen to him talk about the bill. I did not understand, and i do americans95 of understand about these appropriations. Doing it as an appropriation rather than one messed bill. Thingy did that, this would be better. The defensed take appropriation, which was 12 of the budget, and finalize that. That would not be shut down and continue on. It might be the best way to do it. Obviously, the spending of the money as he indicated, nobody spends the money as wisely as you would. Fairly interesting. It was the first time i was able to listen to him. It was enlightening. For the call. U you can find more from rand paul on our website. His comments, and back when he was running in the race for the 2016 election. Lets get more calls in. We will be hearing from the current president next, donald trump. He spoke at a Prayer Breakfast on thursday. Lets hear from charles first. Republican line, tallahassee. Caller i agree with most everything the senator from kentucky said. Especially the part about holding the republicans feet to the fire and the democrats the to the fire. I am on the couch holding my hand over my wallet. Vote on a 700 page bill, in if they had aours clinician to read it, and most of them have not. That would not ever happen in the private sector. They would be out of jobs. If i had somebody on my payroll going over contracts, and he did not read it, or have my interest at heart, he would be unemployed. Host last call federal worker. Mark. Im good. Just waiting to see if i go to work tomorrow. Host how do you get that word . Is it from email . We have to go by roles hour furlough papers. Released. L be we waited for hours to see if they will pass it. We technically could not work because we were on Government Shutdown time. Talking about rand pauls statements, im glad you covered it. Everybody else is talking about the press secretary, which we do not care about. Ive been to iraq three times and afghanistan twice. Losing all this military equipment, and spending, we are not a nation builder. We need to take care of ourselves before we take care of everybody else. We need to start doing that. Us shutting it down. Im glad what he did today. We do shut it down and fix this. At work, if i spend 300 i have to document it, and it goes up the chain of command. I work for the dod. Losing all this money in afghanistan, i know because i have seen it. There needs to be oversight. There needs to be accountability. Somehow, we have to do it. If the shutdown is what it takes, it is what needs to be done. We appreciate all your phone calls. We have the phone lines open every morning on washington journal. Pan. A tweet to cs the senate is making taking its action to pass a twoyear budget. The ball is in the house. Arounde expected to vote 3 00 a. M. To 5 00 a. M. Eastern time. We will keep you updated here. Right now, take a look back earlier, from thursday, President Trump joining lawmakers and religious leaders for the national Prayer Breakfast