Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) had strong words this week for fellow conservatives and the Trump administration over a proposed $5 trillion debt ceiling hike.
Appearing on Fox & Friends on May 15, Paul questioned the logic behind such massive borrowing.
“It’s asking conservatives like myself to raise the debt ceiling $5 trillion. That’s historic. Nobody has ever raised the debt ceiling that much,” he said.
“If the DOGE cuts are real, why are we gonna borrow another $5 trillion?”
Paul was referring to proposed federal spending cuts, including those from HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., which have been publicly supported by President Donald Trump and Elon Musk.
Slamming Wasteful Spending
While Paul criticized the proposed $5 trillion debt ceiling increase, he also praised Kennedy and Trump for finally drawing a line on what he considers frivolous government-funded research.
He gave examples of past HHS grants, including one that spent nearly three-quarters of a million dollars to study microaggressions against obese Latinx individuals, another that explored whether happy rats use more cocaine than unhappy ones, and a third on whether transgender men can still get pregnant.
“This kind of craziness has been going on not for a couple years. This didn’t start in the Biden years. This has been going on since the 1970s,” Paul said.
“Finally we have someone, President Trump, willing to stand up and say enough is enough.”
He argued that federal money should be going to major health issues like obesity, diabetes, and cancer, instead of what he called “crazy, looney things that any common sense American would say are nuts.”
Disputing Democratic Claims
Paul also defended Kennedy during a tense exchange with Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who claimed that staffing cuts had prevented a cancer patient in her district from joining a clinical trial.
Kennedy followed up during the hearing and found the patient didn’t qualify based on medical criteria, not budget cuts.
Paul called the incident “a disgusting way to use someone… as a pawn for political purposes” and said it was misleading to blame budget cuts.
Pushing for Short-Term Accountability
Beyond criticizing the debt ceiling proposal, Paul pushed for more frequent reviews.
He said Congress should vote on debt ceiling increases every 3 to 4 months to make sure promised cuts are actually happening.
“If the problem promises are real, we’ll vote to raise it every three months,”
Paul said. “If you’re raising $5 trillion for two years, you just put it on the back burner. We will coast through that money and spend it all. And that’s not what the people want. That’s not what our supporters want.”
Paul’s message was clear: big promises about spending cuts mean nothing if they’re followed by even bigger borrowing.
IMAGE CREDIT: “Rand Paul” by Gage Skidmore, via Flickr. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. Image adjusted for layout.