Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, at this time I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to a gentleman who has great reverence for the United States Constitution, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. PAUL).
2011 Ron Paul 27:2
I rise in support of this rule, although I have a lot of complaints about how we deal with the issue of war. This is a debate that should have gone on 4 months ago, before the war was started. And if we had done this properly, we wouldn’t be bringing this up quickly today. No committee work, no discussion, no chance for amendment. But, nevertheless, I will support the rule because at least we get a chance to talk a little bit about what’s going on in Libya.
2011 Ron Paul 27:3
We have two resolutions that will come up under this rule. The first resolution, generally, I understand most individuals aren’t too keen on this, because it’s a literal endorsement—a rather explicit endorsement—of the war, so obviously I oppose H.J. Res. 68. But my greatest concern is about H.R. 2278. The way I read this resolution is that it essentially grants the same authority that we grant in the first Resolution because we say that no funds can be used—it denies the use of funds. But how can you deny the use of appropriated funds when they’re using funds that weren’t appropriated? It’s so redundant. The funds were never appropriated. So, yes, it’s a good statement. You don’t continue to be illegal, is what we’re saying.
2011 Ron Paul 27:4
What I’m concerned about are the exceptions. All the exceptions are for the things that they’re already doing, like search and rescue, intelligence gathering, reconnaissance, surveillance, refueling, operations planning, and doing everything except pulling the trigger. So we’re legalizing the current war.
2011 Ron Paul 27:5
I believe that H.R. 2278 is the first time that we in the Congress are making a statement of granting authority to the President to pursue this particular war. I am in strong opposition to that resolution as well, although I understand the other side of the argument because it says “denial of funds.” The author of the resolution said the reason why we have the exception is to protect the integrity of our contract or agreement with NATO. Well, in the resolution it says we have to stop the funding because we don’t want to support NATO’s war.
2011 Ron Paul 27:6
So it’s totally inconsistent. Makes no sense whatsoever. But it reminds me of the War Powers resolution. After the Vietnam War, we didn’t want to get into that kind of war any more, so Congress, in its infinite wisdom, with good intentions, it designs the War Powers resolution, which legalized war for 90 days. That’s part of the reason why we’re here. We’re worried about 90 days. But here we’re going into the fourth month dealing with the War Powers resolution.
2011 Ron Paul 27:7
There is a simple solution to all of
this, and that is to obey the Constitution. Don’t allow our Presidents to go to war without a declaration of war, and we wouldn’t be facing this problem of this debate that actually gets a little bit silly on restraining the President. Yes, we should. We should exert ourselves. We have the prerogatives, and we have the obligations. We have avoided it. It’s time to stand up for the rule of law.
Note:
2011 Ron Paul Chapter 27
The title of this chapter was editorially supplied by the webmaster.
