Sen. Rand Paul insisted on Newsmax, Tuesday, that attacks on him over his stance on President Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill” won’t motivate him into accepting legislation that isn’t conservative, but he also won’t be the deciding vote against passing the bill.
“If there are 49 votes, I will not be the deciding vote against this,” the Kentucky Republican told Newsmax’s “Newsline.” “I will negotiate, and I’ll be a yes if the vote is needed … if they need a 50th vote, they’ll have to separate the debt ceiling out. It’s as simple as that.”
He said he’s spoken with Trump three times in the past week, and they will continue to talk.
“They need to know that I am available,” Paul said. “They’re siccing their attack dogs on me. All these crazy, scurrilous characters are attacking me, but the thing is, that’s not likely to motivate me or make me willing to accept something that’s not conservative. But I will accept a conservative bill.”
Paul, meanwhile, said that he has been consistent in wanting lower taxes and less spending, along with balanced budgets, and he wants to make Trump’s 2017 tax cuts permanent so businesses can develop.
“I think the low unemployment in Trump’s first administration was largely regarding and the response of the tax cuts,” said Paul.
But the tax cuts in the current megabill are “wimpy and anemic” and should be made better, Paul said, but still, he can “tolerate” them.
“What I don’t want to do is raise the debt ceiling by $5 trillion, because that means that we’re basically expanding the credit line to Congress, when Congress has already borrowed $36 trillion,” he said. “We have a $2 trillion annual deficit. Our interest payment, for goodness’ sake, is over $1 trillion a year.”
Raising the debt ceiling, he added, is a “big mistake.”
“So I can support the bill, but they will have to separate the debt ceiling to another vote,” the senator said. “Or, they’ll have to dramatically reduce the number. I’ve said I will give them more credit for three months, and we should address this three or four times a year.”
Paul added that in this vote, there will be nobody to blame but Republicans if the debt ceiling goes up.
“Presented with the vote, the Democrats will vote for it,” said Paul. “This will be the first time the debt ceiling and the spending levels and everything will be the responsibility of Republicans if and when this bill passes … there’s no more blame for [Joe] Biden. There’s no more blame for Democrats.
And that would be a “big mistake” to have the debt ceiling fall “completely on the shoulders of Republicans,” because there must be a “conservative remnant who is the same as we’ve always been, against the debt and against the borrowing.”
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