Mr. HEFLEY. I would now yield 3
minutes to the gentleman from Texas
(Mr. PAUL).
The Chairman. Gentleman from Texas is recognized for 3 minutes.
1998 Ron Paul 53:1
Mr. PAUL.
I thank the gentleman for yielding. I would like to compliment him for bringing this amendment to the floor.
1998 Ron Paul 53:2
I want to make a couple points. One, the other side of the
aisle has mentioned that this is only a
small amount. We’re just introducing
this idea. We’re only giving a couple dollars now. It reminds me of the arguments
in 1913, let’s have an income
tax, but it’s only going to be a fraction
of 1 percent. We know what happened. There are plans for what they’re doing. This is the time to stop it.
1998 Ron Paul 53:3
I think another point that we ought
to make is, how did they get any
money already? They got it from the
Defense Department. We didn’t even
appropriate the money. And they’ve already
started it. They’ve used American
taxpayers’ money without a direct
appropriation from this Congress, and
it’s about time we stopped that type of
legislation. That is the point. Where
did the money come from? The Defense
Department. It goes over into the
United Nations for meddling, meddling
overseas. And it’s taken away, literally,
from defense.
1998 Ron Paul 53:4
We have a problem in this country
for national defense. We have Air Force
people who do not get flying time. Our
men aren’t trained. We don’t have
the right equipment. And we continuously
spend all our money overseas, endlessly
getting involved in Bosnia and Somalia,
and wherever.
1998 Ron Paul 53:5
I think it’s policy that needs to be
addressed. It’s the policy that allows
our administration to do this, because
there’s too much complicity in allowing
the United Nations to assume our
sovereignty.
1998 Ron Paul 53:6
That’s the point here. The American
people deserve better protection. They
deserve better protection of their
money. They deserve better protection
of their youngsters who may get drafted
and may get sent overseas. There’s
a great deal of danger in the Bosnia
and Kosovo area, and yet here we are talking
about starting a new U.N. organization
that unfortunately dwells on the
term and bragged about rapidly
deployable. That’s the last thing we
need from the United Nations. I’d
like to slow it up, but now they want
to take away our sovereignty to go and
get involved more easily than ever and
more quickly than ever.
1998 Ron Paul 53:7
So this is absolutely the wrong direction
that we’re going in today. This is
a further extension of the notion that
our obligation is to police the world. We’re supposed to make the world
safe for democracy. And just think, since
World War II, we have not had one declared
war, but we sure have been
fighting a lot. We’ve lost well over
100,000 men killed. We have lost, we
have had hundreds of thousands of men
injured because we have a policy that
carelessly allows us to intervene in the
affairs of other nations, and we allow
the United Nations to assume too
much control over our foreign policy.
1998 Ron Paul 53:8
It’s up to the U.S. Congress to do
something about that; and that is, to take
away the funding. This is a great
amendment. I can’t conceive of anybody
voting against this amendment
and pretending that this is only a little
bit.
Note:
1998 Ron Paul 53:1 Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman
for yielding time to me. Here, Ron Paul
thanks The Honorable Joel Hefley of Colorado.
