1999 Ron Paul 84:2 Mr. Chairman, the amendment is
straightforward. It prohibits the use of
any money for population control, family
planning, or abortion of any funds
authorized in this bill, appropriated in
this bill.
1999 Ron Paul 84:3 Mr. Chairman, the question really is
this: Should the American taxpayer be
required to pay for birth control pills,
IUDs, Depo-Provera, Norplant, condom
distribution, as well as abortion in foreign
countries. Those who believe this
is a proper and legitimate function will
vote against the amendment. Those
who believe that it is not a proper
function for us to be doing these things
around the world would vote for my
amendment.
1999 Ron Paul 84:4 Mr. Chairman, I mention abortion because
although this bill does not authorize
funds directly for abortion, any
birth control center that is involved
that receives funds from us and are involved
with abortion, all they do is
shift the funds. All funds are fungible,
so any country that we give money to
that is involved with abortion, for
whatever reason, or especially in a
family planning clinic, can very easily
shift those funds and perform abortions.
So this is very, very clear-cut.
1999 Ron Paul 84:5 I would like to spend a minute
though on the authority that is cited
for doing such a thing. Under the House
rules, the committee is required to at
least cite the constitutional authority
for doing what we do on each of our
bills. Of course, I was curious about
this, because I was wondering whether
this could be general welfare. This does
not sound like the general welfare of
the U.S. taxpayer, to be passing out
condoms and birth control pills and
forcing our will on other people, imposing
our standards on them and forcing
our taxpayers to pay. That does not
seem to have anything to do whatsoever
with the general welfare of this
country.
1999 Ron Paul 84:6 Of course, the other clause that is
generally used in our legislation is the
interstate commerce clause. Well, it
would be pretty tough, pretty tough,
justifying passing out condoms in the
various countries of the world under
the interstate commerce clause.
1999 Ron Paul 84:7 So it was very interesting to read exactly
what the justification is. The
Committee on Appropriations, quoting
from the committee report, the Committee
on Appropriations bases its authority
to report this legislation from
clause 7, section 9 of Article I of the
Constitution of the United States of
America, which states “no money shall
be drawn from the Treasury but in consequence
of appropriation made by
law.” “Appropriations contained in
this act,” the report says, “are made
pursuant to this specific power granted
by the Constitution.”
1999 Ron Paul 84:8 That is not a power. That was a prohibition.
It was to keep us from spending
money without appropriation. If
this is true, we can spend money on
anything in the world, and the Constitution
has zero meaning. This cannot
possibly be.
1999 Ron Paul 84:9 So all I would suggest is this: Be a
little more creative when we talk
about the Constitution. There must be
a more creative explanation on why we
are spending these kinds of monies
overseas.
