[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 131 (Friday, September 26, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H8024]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     BUDGET PRIORITIES FOR AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Miller of Florida). Under a previous 
order of the House, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul) is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, just a short while ago we had a vote to cut 
$54 million out of the U.N. appropriation. The vote tally was 242 to 
165, 165 in favor of cutting this $54 million of so-called past dues.
  I want to compliment the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Bartlett] for 
bringing to this our attention, because I think it is a very important 
point, because we are never reimbursed for all of the peacekeeping 
missions throughout the world. Therefore, they actually owe us, we do 
not owe them. So it is rather sad to see that we, as a Congress, cannot 
rectify this; instead, we vote more funds for the United Nations.
  Of course, I do not hide the fact that I do not think a lot about the 
United Nations. I think ultimately it is very detrimental to America's 
policy and very detrimental to our sovereignty, so I have a specific 
agenda in that regard.
  Actually, the problems we face with the United Nations can be solved, 
because there has been a compromise offered. Instead of abolishing the 
United Nations like I would like to do, I think Ted Turner has offered 
us a real solution. Ted Turner is a very wealthy man, has made a lot of 
money in the capital system, and he is voluntarily willing to submit $1 
billion to continue with the United Nations, and I think that is fine. 
I think the United Nations ought to be funded by donations such as from 
Ted Turner. An additional advantage of having Ted Turner send his money 
to the United Nations, we can be assured that with the next war started 
by the United Nations, we can send Jane Fonda to do the fighting for 
us.
  On another subject, I want to just mention something about the recent 
discussions we have had here on the floor here in the last week on the 
pay raise. I am not in favor of the pay raise. I voted against the pay 
raise. As a matter of fact, I think our pension fund is outrageously 
obscene, and I do not participate in it. But in comparison to some 
other matters, I think the amount of attention that we gave to the pay 
raise is probably a little bit more than needed to be done.
  For instance, the pay raise, after taxes, would come to $40 a week, 
but nevertheless, I think the point was well taken that we should not 
be taking a pay raise when so many people in this country are actually 
suffering the consequence of a decreasing standard of living. Until we 
solve that, I do not believe we should be taking a pay raise. That so-
called pay raise would have been a 2.3-percent COLA increase.
  But in comparison to what we were doing in the particular bill that 
that was attached to, the Treasury-Postal Service appropriation, 
informed many Members of the Congress that were not aware of it, but in 
this bill, we actually increase the budget for the IRS by more than a 
half a billion dollars. At the same time we hold these grand hearings, 
make grand speeches against the IRS, and at the very same time we are 
expanding the role and the power and the authority of the IRS by 
expanding their budget by more than a half a billion dollars.
  Then there is another agency of government that is probably the 
second least favorite of mine to the IRS, and that is the BATF. The 
BATF budget was increased 14 percent. It went up $66 million. So at the 
time we were talking about a small cost-of-living increase for 
Congress, which again I oppose, we at the same time were pretending 
that we were fighting this IRS and the abuse of the IRS, but expanding 
the role of the IRS.
  I think what we need to do is get things in perspective. I think that 
first off, we should exist here for the liberty, protection of 
liberties of American citizens; we should be protecting the sovereignty 
of the United States; we should not be paying the dues out of 
proportion to what everybody else pays throughout the world at the same 
time we sacrifice much of our liberties and we live in a nation today 
where our troops are actually serving under the commanders of foreign 
generals. Everybody I talk to, everybody in my district I talk to, they 
do not like this. They would like to see this change.
  So once again, I would like to express the sadness about the recent 
vote that we could not even cut the $54 million away from what is 
called overdue back dues for the United Nations. I think it is so 
important that we put all of this in perspective. Yes, we do not need 
pay raises, but we certainly do not need to raise the amount of money 
we give the IRS and the BATF.

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