Sen. Rand Paul has been a balanced budget guy ever since he was elected to the Senate. He’s just never seen any since he’s been there.
He remembers the Obama years, when spending on top of spending produced a record national debt, doubling in size in eight years over George W. Bush’s record national debt.
And now, after four years of President Donald Trump – who, by the way, produced a deficit-cutting budget his first fiscal year, only to see the GOP majority in Congress pronounce it dead on arrival – the deficit has surpassed $28 trillion and counting.
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And counting. On Tuesday, the GOP-controlled Senate passed a gigantic $2.3 trillion spending bill that included $900 billion for coronavirus ‘relief’ in the form of $600 checks to most Americans, while spending billions and billions and billions on other ‘items’ that will have little-to-no effect on average folks.
But he doled out criticism to both parties for bankrupting the country while noting that the only way to recover is to open states back up (and, we would add, implement all of President Donald Trump’s economic measures).
“The bottom line is the only way we recover this economy is we’ve got to open the economy up,” Paul told Fox News, as reported by The Blaze. “Unemployment is actually lower than it was during most of President Obama’s term, so we really can recover. But we’ve got to get these governors out of the way of our restaurants and our bars and our venues. We’ve got to get the economy opened up, it’s the only way we survive this.”
The Blaze added:
On Monday, Congress approved a $900 billion coronavirus relief package that provided $166 billion in direct $600 checks to every American making up to $75,000. The bill also includes $120 billion in extended weekly $300 unemployment benefits and $325 billion in new Paycheck Protection Program loans for businesses, in addition to billions more in spending on other coronavirus-related issues. But congressional leadership in both parties tied that stimulus package to a $1.4 trillion omnibus spending bill that has faced intense scrutiny from the public and from its opponents, like Paul, who question why Congress is spending money on things like Pakistani “gender programs” or climate monitoring in Tibet.
Paul, who voted against the bill along with a handful of conservative Senate Republicans, was asked if he could support the coronavirus stimulus package if the other spending he considers wasteful was removed.
“These jokers never replace spending,” Paul complained.
“They’ll never do the responsible thing and exchange wasteful spending for useful spending,” he added, before noting that the current crop of lawmakers just don’t care enough to control spending.
“The thing is you need better people. There was only six or seven of us who opposed this smorgasbord debt, but if you ask the American people should we spend money we don’t have? Should we run a balanced budget? I’ll bet you 75 percent of Republicans will tell you they’d rather have conservatives in Washington,” Paul continued.
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“The people in Washington run as conservatives. Like, when President Obama was in power they said it was terrible, the spending and the debt and all this. And now they’re no better,” he continued.
“That bill yesterday was a bunch of socialist spending, and if you voted for it you’re no better than the Democrats. And so that’s the problem we have, people need to get involved in primaries and elect better people,” he added.
Agreed. But will it actually happen, and in time to save this republic?
