WASHINGTON – Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) delivered the following remarks on the U.S. Senate floor:
“I think most people—most adults anyway—understand that, in life, what you say doesn’t really matter. It’s what you do that demonstrates what you believe, and that’s certainly true in politics, and that’s certainly true in Washington, D.C. .
“Now, President Trump—whether you voted for him or not, whether you like him or not—ran on a platform of reducing the size of government, and the people elected him. And since day one, the president has been—if you paid attention to the news—he’s been working very hard to reduce government spending. And he’s reduced a lot. He started out with a [Department of Government Efficiency] program with Mr. Elon Musk. Mr. Musk, of course, has left. But the quest to reduce government spending, wasteful government spending, which I call spending porn, continues.
“Every Republican in the U.S. Senate has voiced approval of what the president has done. Every Republican—every one of my colleagues, myself included—has said to the president, ‘Atta boy, Mr. President. Go get them. Keep issuing those executive orders. Reduce the spending. We’re spending too much money. We’ve got a $37 trillion debt. Keep going, Mr. President.’
“And the president has, but he’s been doing it through executive order. There’s only so much you can do through executive order. . . . And now my colleagues and I have an opportunity to really support the president.
“I don’t know if this bill is going to pass. . . . But I want to put this in context: After all of us on my side of the aisle telling the world that we need to reduce spending, if we vote against this rescission package and refuse to reduce spending by one-tenth of one percent of the budget, we ought to hide our heads in a bag. . . .
“I’m going to read you some of the appropriations that the president is asking us to eliminate from the current budget, and you be the judge. Let the American people decide.
“The president is asking us to eliminate $5.1 million of taxpayer money in the American budget and the federal budget that is there to ‘strengthen the resilience of queer global movements.’ . . . $3 million for circumcision, vasectomies and condoms in Zambia. I didn’t make this stuff up. It’s in the budget. . . . $3.6 million for pastry cooking classes, cybercafes and dance focus groups for male prostitutes in Haiti.
“How many Americans, Mr. President, do you think we should be spending their money to fund male prostitutes in Haiti? But there it is in our budget, bigger than Dallas. And the president is saying cut it out. $6.2 million for Venezuelan migrants in Colombia. $500,000 to buy Rwanda electric buses.
“I love Rwanda. If they want electric buses, they have got a budget. $300,000 for a pride parade in Lesotho. $300,000 for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex advocacy in Uganda. $500,000 for biodiversity in Peru.
“I could keep going. I could go the rest of the day and the night. Now I know what you’re thinking: How in God’s name, on God’s green earth did this spending porn get in the federal budget? Why would Congress put it there? I’m going to tell you why: We didn’t.
“When we pass a budget, we pass budgets based on programs or agendas or line items. . . . Congress didn’t vote to spend $3 million on sexual reproductive health in Venezuela. We voted for a program that the bureaucrats took and spent on sexual health and reproductive health in Venezuela.
“That’s not an excuse, but I get that question all the time. Why did Congress vote to do this? We didn’t. The bureaucracy did. It’s a giant rogue beast. But the point is: Trump caught it, and his people caught it, and the president is saying, ‘Get rid of it.’
“We’d be better off taking all of this money that I just talked about and spending it on scratch tickets and blackjack. At least taxpayers might have a chance of getting a return. That’s how out of control this is. But if you listen to some of my colleagues, ‘Oh my God. If we cut this spending porn, civilization is going to melt.’
“Now, there’s one other thing in our budget that the president is asking us to cut: He’s asking us to cut a little over $1 billion for what I will call public broadcasting. . . . The president and CEO of NPR thinks that America is ‘addicted to white supremacy.’ She has denounced the use of the words ‘boy’ and ‘girl.’ She said that is ‘erasing language’ for nonbinary people. She contends that the U.S. was founded on the basis of ‘black plunder and white democracy’ That’s who’s running the show over there. . . .
“NPR and PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting are entitled to publish and broadcast what they publish, but not on the taxpayer’s dime. . . . We don’t fund CNN. We don’t fund Fox News. We don’t fund newspapers. Why are we funding PBS and NPR and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting?
“And all the president is saying, ‘I don’t want you to do that anymore, Congress. I don’t want you to fund any form of media. PBS, for example, is right to publish what they want, but Congress shouldn’t give them taxpayer money to do it. Let them go raise money in the private sector.’ And the president’s right.
“The president is absolutely right, and that’s all this rescission bill is going to do, Mr. President. It’s going to bring a little bit of sanity back to our appropriations process. . . . What you do is what you believe, and everything else is just cottage cheese. . . . I listened to all of my Republican colleagues encourage the president and say, ‘That’s great. We’ve got to reduce spending.’
“Well, here’s your chance. It’s gut-check time. You either believe in reducing spending, or you don’t. You either support spending porn or you don’t. We’re going to find out who does and who doesn’t here in about three or four hours.”