[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 42 (Tuesday, March 10, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H3129-H3130]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                EARMARKS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PAUL. I would like to address the subject of earmarks today. I 
think there's a lot of misunderstanding here among the Members as to 
exactly what it means to vote against an earmark. It's very popular 
today to condemn earmarks, and even hold up legislation because of 
this.
  The truth is that if you removed all the earmarks from the budget, 
you would remove 1 percent of the budget. So there's not a lot of 
savings. But, even if you voted against all the earmarks actually, you 
don't even save the 1 percent because you don't save any money.
  What is done is, those earmarks are removed, and some of them are 
very wasteful and unnecessary, but that money then goes to the 
executive branch. So, in many ways, what we are doing here in the 
Congress is reneging on our responsibilities, because it is the 
responsibility of the Congress to earmark. That is our job. We are 
supposed to tell the people how we are spending the money, not to just 
deliver it in a lump sum to the executive branch and let them deal with 
it, and then it's dealt with behind the scenes.
  Actually, if you voted against all the earmarks, there would be less 
transparency. Earmarks really allow transparency, and we know exactly 
where the money is being spent.
  The big issue is the spending. If you don't like the spending, vote 
against the bill. But the principle of earmarking is something that we 
have to think about, because we are just further undermining the 
responsibilities that we have here in the Congress.
  If we want to get things under control, it won't be because we vote 
against an earmark and make a big deal of attacking earmarks because it 
doesn't address the subject. In reality, what we need are more 
earmarks.
  Just think of the $350 billion that we recently appropriated and gave 
to the Treasury Department. Now everybody's running around and saying, 
Well, we don't know where the money went. We just gave it to them in a 
lump sum. We should have earmarked everything. It should have been 
designated where the money is going.
  So, instead of too many earmarks, we don't have enough earmarks. 
Transparency is the only way we can get to

[[Page H3130]]

the bottom of this. And if you make everything earmarked, it would be 
much better.
  The definition of an earmark is very, very confusing. If you would 
vote to support the embassy, which came up to nearly $1 billion in 
Baghdad, that is not called an earmark. But if you have an earmark for 
a highway or a building here in the United States, that is called an 
earmark. If you vote for a weapons system, it would support and help a 
certain district, and that's not considered an earmark.
  When people are yelling and screaming about getting rid of earmarks, 
they're not talking about getting rid of weapons systems or building 
buildings and bridges and highways in foreign countries. They are only 
talking about when it's designated that certain money would be spent a 
certain way in this country.
  Ultimately, where we really need some supervision and some earmarks 
are the trillions of dollars spent by the Federal Reserve. They get to 
create their money out of thin air, and spend it. They have no 
responsibility to tell us anything. Under the law, they are excluded 
from telling us where and what they do.
  So, we neglect telling the Treasury how to spend TARP money, and then 
we complain about how they do it. But just think literally; the 
Treasury is miniscule compared to what the Federal Reserve does.
  The Treasury gets hundreds of billions, which is huge, of course, and 
then we neglect to talk about the Federal Reserve, where they are 
creating money out of thin air, and supporting all their friends and 
taking care of certain banks and certain corporations. This, to me, has 
to be addressed.
  I have introduced a bill, it's called H.R. 1207, and this would 
remove the restriction on us to find out what the Federal Reserve is 
doing. Today, the Federal Reserve under the law is not required to tell 
us anything. So all my bill does is remove this restriction and say, 
Look, Federal Reserve, you have a lot of power. You have too much 
power. You're spending a lot of money. You're taking care of people 
that we have no idea what you're doing. We, in the Congress, have a 
responsibility to know exactly what you're doing.
  This bill, H.R. 1207, will allow us for once and for all to have some 
supervision of the Federal Reserve. They are exempt from telling us 
anything, and they have stiffed us already. There have been lawsuits 
filed over the Freedom of Information Act. Believe me, they are not 
going to work, because the law protects the Federal Reserve.
  The Constitution doesn't protect the Federal Reserve. The 
Constitution protects the people to know exactly what is going on. We 
should enforce the Constitution. We should not enforce these laws that 
protect a secret bank that gets to create this money out of thin air.
  So, the sooner we in the Congress wake up to our responsibilities, 
understand what earmarks are all about, and understand why we need a 
lot more earmarks, then we will come to our senses, because we might 
then have a more sensible monetary and banking system, the system that 
has brought us to this calamity. So, the sooner we realize that, I 
think it would be better for the taxpayer.

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