Further Continuing Appropriations and Other Extensions Act, 2024

Floor Speech

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Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, to continue spending money at the current levels will inevitably lead to the bankruptcy of our great Nation. My amendment, in order to stave off such a terrible fiscal outcome, would cut approximately 1 percent of our budgetary spending and help to put us on the path toward fiscal responsibility.

In June of this year, the national debt surpassed $32 trillion. Then, in September, the national debt surpassed $33 trillion. You heard that right. It took Congress 90 short days to add $1 trillion in debt. Unless we change course, the debt will consume us.

America's future as a nation is not threatened from without but from within. Our mounting debt will ultimately force a day of reckoning. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that we will add an average of $2 trillion in debt every year for the next decade. Using Congressional Budget Office projections, the U.S. Government will add over $5 billion to its debt pile every single day for the next 10 years.

We borrow over $176 million every hour. We borrow $3 million every minute, and we borrow $50,000 every second. It is only a matter of time before the world wakes up and refuses to buy our debt.

This reckless level of borrowing and spending is patently unsustainable. The ever-increasing heights of our debt mean a weak economy, high inflation, and confiscatory tax rates. In other words, today's spending threatens tomorrow's prosperity.

According to William McBride of the Tax Foundation, ``outside of the pandemic years, this year's federal deficit is the highest in U.S. history.''

McBride continues:

Figures from the Congressional Budget Office for fiscal year 2023 indicate that the federal deficit grew by about $2 trillion.

McBride also states that ``while tax revenue has increased 28 percent since the prepandemic year of 2019, spending has increased about 46 percent and the deficit has more than doubled. Annual deficits are headed toward [even] $3 trillion'' a year if we don't wake up and do something about it.

McBride concludes:

In sum, the federal budget continues on a perilous course. . . . Now would be a good time for our political leaders to present a coherent plan for dealing with the debt problem before it becomes an urgent crisis.

That is why I am here on the floor today. Americans are starved for a voice of fiscal sanity. Americans understand far better than the Nation's elites that time is running out. Americans will pay dearly for Congress's inability to say no to every cause, every line item, every pinstripe lobbyist. We will pay more to Uncle Sam in the form of taxes. We will pay more for groceries because of high levels of inflation that will destroy our purchasing power. And we will find a generation of kids who won't leave their parents' homes because businesses cannot afford to hire them.

It doesn't have to be this way. America can once again be a rising nation, and we can take that first step toward a brighter future today. My amendment will make across-the-board reductions except for defense and veterans' benefits. Additionally, the amendment would cut $30 billion from the Biden administration's attempt to sic the IRS on American taxpayers to squeeze even more money out of those who earned their hard-earned dollars.

All told, my amendment would save taxpayers $60 billion, which is only about 1 percent of all budgetary spending. It is a small and modest reduction in spending, but it is a step in the right direction.

This is not the first time I have offered an amendment to save the taxpayers money. Throughout my time in the Senate, I have, time and time again, offered balanced budgets and plans that would shave pennies--mere pennies--from every budgetary program to restore our fiscal health, and, every time, these proposals are rejected by the Senate. The result of failing to act then is that, today, we now vote in the shadow of a mountain of debt.

It is time that we rise up. Rise up and tell your Members of Congress that enough is enough. It is time to take a stand while the restoration of American prosperity is still within our grasp. By the time this continuing resolution expires, the people who ask for your vote next year will have added another $1 trillion to the debt. It is time to take a stand.

I urge a ``yes'' vote on my amendment and call up amendment No. 1366 and ask that it be reported by number.

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Mr. PAUL. Madam President, I yield back my time, and I call for the yeas and nays.

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