On Tuesday, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) spoke out against the proposed Ukraine spending bill on the Senate floor, asking why the country must go further into debt when Congress could simply stop spending money recklessly or get it from the U.S. military budget.

“If the defense of Ukraine is really in our national security interests, shouldn’t the gift come from our military budget?” Paul asked. “What about cutting wasteful spending? My office cataloged over $50 billion in waste.”

“Couldn’t we cut programs like the $1 million study to see if taking selfies of yourself, while smiling, and then looking at these selfies later on, if that makes you feel good? Couldn’t we cut the budget of the National Science Foundation that spends billions of dollars studying such burning questions as do Panamanian city frogs have a different mating call than the country frogs?” he asked.

“Couldn’t we maybe cut the $2 million the NIH spent studying cafeterias to see if someone in front of you sneezes on the food, whether you’re more or less likely to eat the food?

(Video: C-SPAN2)

“Couldn’t we maybe cut the money spent on Japanese quail – studying whether or not they are more sexually promiscuous or not when you give them cocaine? he asked.

Earlier on, Paul had flipped the script and rhetorically asked about private citizens and members of congress paying out-of-pocket for the spending bill now, rather than just leaving a bill for future Americans to settle.

“We could ask if each member of the senate would like to contribute individually to Ukraine. But of course, that would simply serve to demonstrate the enormity of the gift. To come up with $40 billion dollars, each senator would need to give $400 million dollars. Not a likely scenario. It’s much easier to spend such exorbitant amounts if you are spending someone else’s money.”

Paul continued, “But even if the senators won’t agree to contribute their own money, surely we’re are a rich country and can afford it. Well, not exactly.”

“The U.S. debt now approaches $30 trillion dollars. In the past two years alone we have added nearly $6 trillion dollars in new debt. Inflation roars throughout the land, grocery bills are punishing the working class and poor, and gas prices exceed five dollars. Even before the pandemic bailout, our country was running a $1 trillion-dollar annual deficit just to pay for its routine commitments,” he said.

“If this is really for our national security, it should be very popular with the people. Why don’t we offer to tax them in exchange for this? If you want to pay for this with a tax, you could triple the gas tax,” he suggested.

“Alternatively, Congress could raise the income tax about $500 dollars for every American taxpayer,” he offered.

“Here’s your bill, Mr. and Mrs. America,” he said.

Mediaite – for its part – said that funding for Japanese quail had ceased several years ago, missing the point that Paul was trying to make.

The outlet cited an article in The Washington Post from last year, wherein it was written, “You can look up data on NIH grants. This particular research was called “Enhancement of Sexual Motivation” and it did, in fact, receive $873,503 from the agency over the course of its progress. But that funding ended more than five years ago. It ended before Paul raised it in 2018.”

Then the famous rag went on to cite Scientific American in its defense of the study which they say no longer receives funding.

“There is already an extensive literature on drugs like cocaine, how it impacts various behaviors and how it acts in, and changes, the brains,” said the publication. “But we don’t know everything by any means, and we certainly don’t know enough about mechanism to treat cocaine addiction effectively. Studies to understand how cocaine impacts every behavior are important to our understanding of the drug and how we can combat its effects.”

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Frank Webster

Staff Writer

Frank (Chip) Webster is a musician and composer, former teacher of percussion and U.S. Army Infantry veteran. He holds a degree in English from Arizona State University.

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