Congress cannot keep spending money without using what had already been allocated, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., told Newsmax on Monday, pointing to the latest $40 billion package for Ukraine aid to fight Russia's invasion.
"Somebody's got to be fiscally conservative," Paul told Tuesday's "John Bachman Now." "I may be the last one standing, but I'm going to continue to say if you want to spend $40 billion, find it somewhere.
"There's gotta be somebody up here who's cranky enough to point out all the waste and all the expenditures, and I guess it's me this week," Paul added to host John Bachman.
Paul moved to block the quick passage of the Senate funding for Ukraine aid, but he contends the money will go out. Tens of billions were already sent and apparently spent, and Congress needs to assign someone to watch how the latest will be spent, Paul continued.
"I think it's a fool's errand to give money without watching how it's spent," Paul said. "The special inspector general for Afghanistan has been watching over it, and even he wasn't able to prevent the waste, but he was able to find some of the waste, and I think prevent some of the criminality.
"That's what we proposed. I think if you give $40 billion without adequate oversight, we will be back here a year from now, talking about how much money was stolen, and so, no, I think it's a big mistake."
Paul is not blocking aiding Ukraine as much as blocking Congress from more spending, while ignoring the money already allocated that could be repurposed to aid Ukraine.
"We have an enormous budget; it's like $4 trillion," Paul said. "This should have come from someplace that we don't need it as much.
"If it really is a threat to our national security, then take it from some other place."
Or, Paul suggested, just put the $500 per American taxpayer charge on them — saying that would change a lot of minds on how much is funneled to Ukraine.
"They could have found this in the military budget that we've already allocated; they could have said to the American people: Why don't we have a $500 tax on everybody?" Paul continued. "That's about what it would cost, a $500 tax on every income taxpayer in our country.
"But I'm guessing that maybe if people have to pay for things, they might also think twice about it, so I don't know, I think it's a good idea to pay for things and not just to borrow."
Ukraine aid has already been heavy in recent years and burned through quickly, apparently, Paul noted.
"We gave them $14 billion about a month ago," he said. "That's a pretty quick spend time, you know, to spend down $14 billion in a month. When this passes — and it will pass on Thursday — they have gotten approximately $60 billion over the last several years, but $54 billion of it in the last two months.
"This is approximately equal to what Russia spends in a year, so I don't think anybody's been stingy with aid."
Paul said Congress and the Biden administration need to take inflation into consideration whenever it suggests borrowing, spending, and gifting more money overseas nonstop.
"At this point we have to be concerned about the value of our dollar and the stability of our dollar," Paul concluded. "We borrowed nearly $6 trillion in the last couple of years. In the last two months, we've had another $100-150 billion.
"As soon as this goes out the door later on this week, the Democrats are going to be asking for $47 billion more to bail out restaurants because of the pandemic lockdowns."
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Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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