Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) opposes the “deficit spending” of both political parties he said Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation.
Recalling the “tea party tidal wave” opposition to massive government overspending, he said that he continues to oppose this spending: “And I’m still against deficit spending, just because Republicans are doing it doesn’t make it any better,” he said.
Paul says that Republicans refuse to “ask themselves,” “can you be fiscally conservative and be for unlimited military spending?” He continued, “There’s sort of this question, is the military budget too small or maybe is our mission too large around the world?”
The failure to deal with this issue results in increased government spending because Republicans seek higher military funding and provide Democrats higher domestic funding in exchange, Paul explained. Some speak about “bipartisanship,” but “if the bipartisanship is exploding the deficit I’m not so sure that’s the kind of bipartisanship we need,” he said.
Paul also spoke about US military action, noting that he believes “the Afghan war is long past its mission” and that it is currently “a nation building exercise.” He said that the US spends $50 billion per year and noted that if President Trump wants to address infrastructure, much of this could be utilized to fund domestic projects: “Instead of building bridges and schools and roads in Afghanistan or in Pakistan, I think we could do that at home,” Paul said, noting that he believes President Trump’s “instincts lean that way.”
Major Garrett then interjected, saying that the President’s “policies have not though.”
Paul said that the generals Trump placed around himself “don’t want to admit that there isn’t a military solution and so the war goes on and on and on,” and Paul also added that “after 15 years and a trillion dollars that the Afghan, it’s time for them to take over their country.”
Garrett asked Paul about his decision to vote for tax cuts that will increase the deficit even though Paul understands that “the instincts in Washington are to spend.”
Paul described supporting tax cuts and spending hikes as “hypocritical,” but said that he supports spending and tax cuts.
“When we had the budget deal that lowered the taxes I also had an amendment to look at and try to control entitlement spending at the same time to pay for the tax cuts, but interestingly I could only interest three other Republicans. We had four votes total to try to control entitlement spending and that is where the money is,” he said.
Garrett asked Paul, “isn’t there any part of your voting pattern that is irresponsible?” since Paul understands that “the votes are there for tax cuts” but “they’re not there for spending cuts.”
Paul responded in the negative and noted, “I can only control how I vote.” He also said, “all throughout my career I’ve always voted for spending cuts and I’m happy to offset cuts in taxes with cuts in spending.”
Early Monday morning President Trump blasted the massive US spending in the Middle East and mentioned infrastructure: “This will be a big week for Infrastructure. After so stupidly spending $7 trillion in the Middle East, it is now time to start investing in OUR Country!”