2001 Ron Paul 32:1
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the
gentleman from Florida (Mr. DIAZ-BALART)
for yielding me this time.
2001 Ron Paul 32:2
Mr. Speaker, I rise as a member of
the Committee on International Relations
but I would like to express my
disappointment that of my amendments
that were offered to the Committee
on Rules, none of them were approved.
That was a great disappointment
to me.
2001 Ron Paul 32:3
I will vote for the rule, recognizing
the fact that it is hard to accommodate
everyone, but nevertheless it is very
clear that I have been an outspoken opponent
of the United Nations, and the
amendments that we will be discussing
will really not deal with the essence of
whether or not we should be involved
as we are in foreign interventionism. I
think we are tinkering on the edges
and will not do much to improve the
bill even if some of the amendments
are passed, some of which I will support.
2001 Ron Paul 32:4
I do think there are some serious
things that we must consider. One is
the issue of national sovereignty. To
support H.R. 1646, one has to vote to
give up some of our national sovereignty
to the United Nations. There
is $844 million for peacekeeping missions.
We know now that we live in an
age when we go to war not by declaration
of the U.S. Congress but we go to
war under U.N. resolutions. When we
vote for this bill, and if this bill is supported,
that concept of giving up our
sovereignty and going to war under
U.N. resolutions is supported.
2001 Ron Paul 32:5
I would like to have struck from the
bill all the money for population control.
I will support the Mexican City
language, but it really does not do that
much. All funds are fungible, and if we
provide hundreds of millions of dollars
for population control and say please
do not use it for abortion, it is just
shifting some funds around. So there is
no real prohibition on the use of American
taxpayers’ money for abortion if
we do not strike all of these funds.
2001 Ron Paul 32:6
The United Nations have already laid
plans for an international tax. This
January it was proposed that the U.N.
would like to put a tax on all currency
transactions to raise $1.5 billion. This
is abhorrent. This should be abhorrent
to all of us. It should be abhorrent to
all Americans that we would have an
international tax imposed by the
United Nations.
2001 Ron Paul 32:7
Already the United Nations is involved
in tax collecting. In Bosnia
right now, in Serbia, the U.N. has as
one of their functions collecting taxes
on goods coming into the country.
There was a demonstration not too
long ago by the Serbs objecting to this.
The idea that U.N. soldiers, paid by the
American taxpayers, are now tax collectors
in Bosnia should arouse our
concern.
2001 Ron Paul 32:8
The only way, since we do not have
the amendments to reject outright
some of this wasteful and harmful
funding, the only way we who believe
that our sovereignty is being challenged
is to reject 1646. I see no other
way to address this subject, because it
is not in our best interest to go along
with this.
2001 Ron Paul 32:9
The way the bill is written right now,
we will support the Kyoto Treaty, and
the International Criminal Court is
also something that we should be contending
with.
