Speech by Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), March 29, 2000

Speech by Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), March 29, 2000
UNNECESSARY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS AND UNWISE MILITARY ADVENTURISM IN COLOMBIA (House of Representatives - March 29, 2000)

[Page: H1484]
(Mr. PAUL asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, the current budget this year authorizes an expenditure of $1.789 trillion. We would think that would be enough. The President has asked for an additional $4 billion. After the House leadership thought about this, they decided to give him $9 billion.

Quite frankly, I think there is enough waste and fraud in the current budget that we could find the $4 billion if this expenditure were necessary. If we ever considered cutting back on some unconstitutional spending, we would have plenty of funds to take care of additional expenditures and have a lot left over.

But we should be very cautious about what we are doing today by expanding our involvement in Colombia. We are now moving into Colombia and spending a lot of money and expanding our war in this area. We should not be spending our money on military adventurism. We should be taking this money and spending it to build up our military defenses. We should be using this money to pay our military personnel more money, give them better housing and better education and better medical care.

What we are doing today, if we pass this bill, is we are going to move into an another area of the world where we have no constitutional interest.

END

As of March 30, 2000, this document was also available online at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r106:H29MR0-76: