Rand Paul

Let me follow up on the point I made earlier about the good intentions of a program like this to promote free market changes in certain countries, but, unfortunately, this backfires because once the money gets in the hands of the…

A free market libertarian does not believe in welfare for anybody, let alone the rich, and it is particularly gnawing to see the subsidies go to the very wealthy. I am in strong support of this amendment, but, like the gentleman from…

my amendment strikes the Millennium Challenge Account. When this program was put in place a year ago, it was originally thought to be a program that would replace old-fashioned foreign aid, but because the votes were not there, instead of…

I happen to believe that we have ignored for too long in this country and in this body the foreign policy that was designed by our Founders, a foreign policy of nonintervention. I think it is better for us. I think it is healthy in all…

Once again, I want to make the point about the inconsistency of our policy. In 1979, the Taiwan Relations Act was put in place mainly because we orchestrated getting them kicked out of the U.N., so we had to do something, so we passed this…

All government spending represents a tax. The inflation tax, while largely ignored, hurts middle-class and low-income Americans the most. The never-ending political squabbling in Congress over taxing the rich, helping the poor, PAYGO…

I think it would be proper to rename this amendment and call it the ``partial restoration of the fourth amendment,'' and that is our attempt here. We are doing exactly what the gentleman early on suggested: this is oversight; this is our…

I think marijuana is a helpful medical treatment for the people who have intractable nausea. I would like to point out this is not something strange that we are suggesting here. For the first 163 years of our history in this country, the…

This amendment denies funds to UNESCO, and it is an amendment that is identical to what I brought up last year and got a recorded vote on and had a debate on last year. Last year, I brought it up because we were just getting back into…

I support H.R. 4663, the Spending Control Act of 2004, because I believe those of us concerned about the effects of excessive government spending on American liberty and prosperity should support any effort to rein in spending. However, I…

I will vote for H.R. 4520 today because the tax cuts contained in the bill outweigh the unfortunate but inevitable subsidies also included. I promise my constituents that I will vote for all tax cuts and against all new spending. So when…

all Americans mourn the death of President Ronald Reagan, but those of us who had the opportunity to know President Reagan are especially saddened. I got to know President Reagan in 1976 when, as a freshman congressman, I was one of only…

I rise to explain my objection to H. Con. Res. 414, the resolution commending the anniversary of the decision in Brown v. Board of Education and related cases. While I certainly agree with the expression of abhorrence at the very idea of…

as a cosponsor I am very pleased to support H.R. 2844, the Continuity in Representation Act. H.R. 2844 provides a practical and constitutional way to ensure that the House of Representatives can continue to operate in the event that more…

we are constantly admonished to remember the lessons of 9/11. Of course, the real issue is not remembering, but rather knowing what the pertinent lesson of that sad day is. The 9/11 Commission will soon release its report after months of…

H.R. 254 expands the authority of the North American Development Bank (NAD), which was created in the allegedly free-trade NAFTA agreement, to make below-market loans. H.R. 254 also expands the geographic area in which the NAD bank…

today, in the floor debate on H. Res. 557, the Iraq resolution, though a member of the Committee on International Relations, I was unfortunately denied time to express my dissent on the policy of preemptive war in Iraq. The fact that the…

Congress is once again using abusive litigation at the state level as a justification nationalizing tort law. In this case, the Personal Responsibility in Food Consumption Act (H.R. 339) usurps state jurisdiction over lawsuits related to…

Regarding the loss of lives, whether it is 3,000 that some report, or 20,000, many of those would be preventable if we did not have the drug wars going on. The drug wars go on because people are fighting for turf and then the police have…

Mr. Speaker, let me just close with a comment about the prison system and what has happened. As I mentioned before, 84 percent of Federal prisoners are nonviolent drug offenders. Many go into prison, and they come out hardened criminals…

a wise consistency is the foundation of a free society, yet everyone knows or thinks they know that consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. How many times has Ralph Waldo Emerson been quoted to belittle a consistent philosophy…

I intend to vote for H.R. 743, the Social Security Protection Act, because it contains an important provision that was not included in previous versions of this bill. This provision takes a first step toward ensuring that non-citizens who…

Much has been written lately about several attempts to craft an alternative peace plan in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian dispute. The best-known of these recent plans, the Geneva Initiative, was conceived and written by…

I am opposed to this ill-conceived and ill-timed bill. I would like to remind my colleagues that according to our own Constitution, Congress is prohibited from making any law ``respecting the establishment of religion or the free exercise…

today we are once again voting to take our Nation further down the path toward a system of centralized Federal planning of our energy supply. The very notion of a national energy policy is collectivist; it assumes that an energy supply…