Rand Paul: “my amendment strikes the paragraph on page 2, line 21 entitled ``subsidy appropriation.'' I do not believe this Congress…”

“my amendment strikes the paragraph on page 2, line 21 entitled ``subsidy appropriation.'' I do not believe this Congress should be in the business of subsidizing anyone. We should be protecting the American taxpayer, and we should be protecting the individual liberty of all American citizens, not dealing in subsidies. This paragraph is found in the bill which is called ``foreign operations.'' It is a subsidy to large corporations, and it is a subsidy to foreign entities and foreign governments. The largest foreign recipient of the foreign aid from this bill is Red China, $6.2 billion. So if one is for free trade, as I am, and as I voted last week to trade with China, one should be positively in favor of my amendment, because this is not free trade. This is subsidized, special interest trade, and I think that is wrong. There has been a lot of talk today on the previous amendment dealing with jobs, and jobs are important. We have an economy now that is turning downwards and jobs are being lost. In this bill, this particular paragraph and the Export-Import Bank does deal with jobs. Those in opposition to my amendment make the point that jobs are enhanced in the big corporations like Boeing. That is true, to a degree, but there is a net loss of jobs because the same entity, the Export-Import Bank, literally exports jobs by subsidizing and loaning money to foreign entities that compete with us.”