Washington, DC — The U.S. national debt stands at $28.4 trillion and is projected to grow to $50.1 trillion by 2025, according to usdebtclock.org. That is, by the way, before unfunded liabilities are added which increases that debt to well over $100 trillion.
Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky exposed just a small segment of the problem last week when he spoke against a new spending bill on the Senate floor that will just add more debt and make America weaker. Speaking on the Endless Frontier Act, sponsored by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Paul noted that in one month this year, the U.S. borrowed $660 billion. Paul added that all the borrowing and spending over the last two years has exceeded all that was spent during World War II, and he warned that there will be “repercussions” to this runaway spending.
The Schumer bill “establishes a Directorate for Technology and Innovation in the National Science Foundation (NSF) and establishes various programs and activities.”
Paul notes that the supporters of the bill claim that it will help the U.S. combat China by borrowing more money from China.
But, is this a Democrat bill? No, it’s bipartisan, and that’s the problem with runaway spending, according to Paul as he called out the hypocrisy on his side of the aisle.
“We’re currently $28 trillion in debt,” Paul said. “Whose fault is it? Republicans? Democrats? The answer’s yes, yes on both fronts. Both parties are responsible for the debt. Now, one side is honest about it. One side will tell you they don’t give a fig about the debt.”
Paul added: “Where’s the opposition? Now, there’s no opposition on one side of the aisle, and on the other side there’s feigned opposition. Republicans will feign opposition to the debt and they will say, ‘well yes, we care about the debt and the other side spends too much and borrows too much.’ You hear Republicans throughout the land campaigning against the debt only to come to Washington and vote for most of the debt.”
This bill has 13 co-sponsors, 7 of whom are Republicans: Roy Blunt (MO), Susan Collins (ME), Steven Daines (MT), Lindsey Graham (SC), Rob Portman (OH), Mitt Romney (UT) and Todd Young (IN).
In his floor speech, Paul detailed just a few of the wasteful spending items that taxpayers have been forced to fund: $1.6 million studying lizards on treadmills, $1.6 million to study an expansion of streetcars in D.C., $850,000 to develop a national cricket league in Afghanistan, $700,000 to study if Neil Armstrong said “one small step for man” or “one small step for a man,” $450,000 to create Climate Change: The Video Game, $356,933 to study the risky sex habits of Japanese quail on cocaine, $250,000 to send Pakistani kids to Dollywood and space camp to learn English and $30,000 to study the gambling habits of Ugandans.
Paul later said this is “a recurrence of waste” that occurs year after year as he detailed more wasteful studies, including $7 million that was supposed to be spent on cancer research but instead went to create a “smart toilet” that even takes photos of the users bottom as they take a… well, you know what.
“How does this go on and nobody does anything? You know what we do, we flush more money down this smart toilet, we give them more money and nobody bats an eye,” Paul said.
Combating government waste has been an ongoing fight for Paul since he won his first Senate seat in 2010. He regularly releases a Waste Report, the last coming in 2019 where he detailed $50.2 billion in waste.
While Paul singled out some of the most preposterous spending programs, it doesn’t even touch the surface of the problem. The vast, vast majority of bureaucracies should not even exist because it’s not the role of government.
Let’s just look at a few of the unconstitutional and immoral government agencies, and their budgets, that should be eliminated immediately: the Department of Education is asking for $102.8 billion (a 39.9% increase from $73.5 billion), the Department of Housing and Urban Development is asking for $68.7 billion (15.1% increase from $59.7 billion), the National Institutes of Health is asking for $52 billion (21.2% increase from $42.9 billion), the Department of Energy is asking for $46.2 billion (16.7% increase from $39.6 billion), the Internal Revenue Service is asking for $19.5 billion (69.6% increase from $11.5 billion), the Department of the Interior is asking for $17.9 billion (13.3% increase from $15.8 billion), the Centers for Disease Control is asking for $15.4 billion (10% increase from $14 billion), the Department of Commerce is asking for $11.5 billion (29.2% increase from $8.9 billion) and the National Science Foundation is asking for $10.3 billion (18.4% increase from $8.7 billion).
In nearly each one of those departments’ budgets, they brag about wanting to steal “historic” levels of taxpayer dollars. It is a positive, according to them, to just grow. No desire to look out for you.
That’s $344.3 billion of government waste right there, and that’s only a few of the agencies that should not exist at all. We can also add on all, again ALL, foreign aid which equates to about $50 billion every year.
And there’s so much more waste. Every single department, even those that are Constitutional, has massive waste, fraud and abuse. And we know it. And nothing is ever done about it.
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