Offers amendment to compromise debt ceiling fix

Bob Unruh
WND News Center

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has announced plans to force the Senate to vote this week on a 5% cut in federal spending for each of the next two years.

According to the Hill, he plans to insist that his amendment to a debt ceiling plan be reviewed.

His office quickly assured Americans that Social Security and a few other limited budget items would be exempt.

But he said he’ll insist on a vote – “in exchange for yielding back time on the Senate floor and giving leaders a chance to pass the debt-limit bill.”

He calls his amendment a “conservative alternative” to the deal reach by Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

But it creates an issue for Senate Republicans, the report said, because a “no” vote opens up the senator for criticism from conservatives “who say that policymakers who exempt mandatory spending programs from reform are not serious about balancing the budget,” the Hill said.

Or a “yes” vote could alienate seniors who are worried about seeing their Medicare benefits cut.

Paul said congressional committees would have to review options to reach the goal of $545 billion in cuts over two years.

“The committees would have to determine where the cuts would be. So there still would be for room for people to disagree and debate over exactly where they want the cuts but there would be an absolute topline number for the entire budget that over the next two years would be on the way to balance in five years,” he explained.

Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act and other health care programs account for nearly 50 percent of all spending, the report pointed out.

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, also has said that “mandatory spending programs” such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid must be reviewed at some point.

Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., said, “You have this crazy political game going on where everybody out-Social Security the other people instead of being straight up and honest with the American public and say, ‘We won’t do any harm to anybody’s existing Social Security, and we’re going to have a forward-leaning solution.'”

The pending compromise, the Fiscal Responsibility Act, was adopted by the House and now is pending before the Senate.

The Daily Caller News Foundation reported it would suspend the debt ceiling for two years.

Paul would replace that with a much smaller, $500 billion increase.

“Bold actions must be taken to defeat our mounting national debt, and my conservative alternative to the Biden-McCarthy deal gives us a real opportunity to get our fiscal house in order,” he said.