Rand Paul: “this spring, just a few days before Congress enacted the last continuing resolution, which is the spending plan--this…”

“this spring, just a few days before Congress enacted the last continuing resolution, which is the spending plan--this resolution that would extend the Biden-era spending levels-- President Trump said in a speech that he wanted to do something that hadn't been done in over 20 years: balance the budget. I fully commend him for that, and I am very supportive of trying to get there. The difficulty is that the spending levels that we voted on in March and the spending levels we will vote on again this week don't balance the budget and don't come anywhere close. These are the spending levels that Biden put in place in December before he left office. Most Republicans were critical and condemnatory. Many conservative Republicans, like myself, voted against these spending levels because they were such that they would lead to a $2 trillion deficit. Well, that is still true. This year, the deficit will be right around $2 trillion, and it is because we have continued the Biden spending levels. To balance the budget, Congress needs a much stronger response than the legislation being presented. Critics of excessive Federal spending have rightly argued that Congress should return to prepandemic levels of spending. When the pandemic came in, spending went through the roof. The economy was shut down. They wrote free checks to all Americans. The problem is that all that was borrowed. There was no money. There was no rainy day fund.”