Rand Paul

reserving the right to object, I would remind the Senator that there is a difference between the Senate and the House. Our Founding Fathers gave great power and leeway to the Senate. We were meant to be a check and a balance against…

we are in the midst of a debt crisis, I think some of it created by the President because he has refused to take off the table the fact we would default on our debt. I think that is irresponsible, and without a doubt the President should…

I would say that what Americans don't like is empty partisanship. That is what is going on today. Democrats are standing and beating their chests saying: Republicans will not let us have a vote. It is untrue. I have offered to have the…

I would ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to present an amendment. This amendment would be an amendment to the Reid bill. Under this amendment what would happen is, I have at least 10 Republicans who will vote for the Harry Reid bill…

When people talk about Washington being dysfunctional, and they are upset with what is going on in Washington, I think one of the things that upsets people is hypocrisy--people who say one thing and do another. That is a sad state of…

No. From going to hundreds of tea party rallies and grassroots rallies with voters across America, what I see is they want what is best for America. I don't think they particularly care whether it is a Republican plan or Democratic plan…

What I think this illustrates is compromise--the pundits say compromise is the mark of an enlightened person. We are trying to compromise. I just offered to pass the leader's bill. I have offered to work with them. I am from the tea party…

People often say in Washington nothing is ever bipartisan. I think we're going to show a change to that today, and I'm excited to see members on both sides of the isle testifying before us.

We have the Boehner proposal on the table. It will cut next year $1 billion. We are spending $1 billion an hour virtually. That is insignificant and not meaningful reform.

I am voting no on S. 1103, a bill to create a second 2 year term for the FBI Director. I am opposed to changing the term limits on this important position, which serve as a safeguard and check against the significant power of the position…

The Congress is concerned about the debt. The people are concerned about the debt. The markets are concerned about the debt. The world is concerned about the debt and what we're doing here today because we live with a world fiat dollar…

I have great sympathy and condolences for those from Joplin for the horrible disaster there.

One of the lessons, I think, may be that we get involved in so many routine storms that maybe we do not have enough money when we have truly catastrophic storms.

I guess some of the concern is that we are declaring everything a disaster and that some of this should be maybe taken care of at the State level.

Some people have reported that part of our problem is that we have a shortage of money, and we have a lot more FEMA disasters declared than before.

So by invoking this rule from the 1974 Budget Act, the Senator's intention has nothing to do with the bill presented before us, it has to do with whether we should be responsible as a government, have a budgetary plan, know how much money…

In this, it had some rules. Right now we are discussing: Do we need new rules to do something about the deficit? This was a rule they thought about back in 1974. It was supposed to make things better. But it shows the rules only work if we…

I wish to join in the sort of the outrage that we would consider spending money without having a plan. Who spends money with no plan as to how much you are going to spend or a plan as to what the repercussions are for spending money you do…

I have a question before we finish. The question I have is: We have not had a budget in 2 years. When is the last time we had appropriations bills and are we working in the committees? See, the people expect us to come up here and do our…

What was the intention, though? What was the intention that rule would do? By having a budget was it supposed to limit, then, what each appropriations bill for each subject would be allowed to spend?

on August 2, the United States will face the debt ceiling. I am one who thinks we should be debating it every day, every week until we find a solution. But in order to find a solution, we have to first admit we have a problem. We have a…

Well, we're listening. And we actually will present a plan in the morning to raise the debt ceiling, contingent upon significant cuts, statutory caps, and a balanced budget amendment.

We can't bind future Congresses, so there's no guarantee that any of those cuts ever occur.

I think if we work together, I think all Republicans are willing to do it.

I don't want to increase taxes, because even if you tax rich people or corporations, it really is taxing everyone, because you will have less jobs and it will hurt the economy.