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  • 6 days ago
During remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) spoke about programs that were included in President Trump's proposed rescissions.
Transcript
00:00Final thing I want to say, Mr. President, next week, President Trump's going to send
00:06us over what's called a rescission bill. What does that mean? Well, we've got a seven trillion
00:13dollar budget. I don't know how much of that seven trillion dollars is waste, but every
00:24fair-minded person would have to agree that there's some money being spent in that seven
00:29trillion dollars that shouldn't be spent. It just shouldn't. It's wasted money.
00:36And so President Trump and this Congress made one of its objectives trying to reduce spending.
00:43Not spending that we need, but spending that needs to be reduced. I call it spending poor.
00:52And the President has sent us a bill. He said, he's saying to Congress, I want you to reduce
00:59spending in the current budget by 9.1 billion dollars. And let me tell you what the spending,
01:07what constitutes the spending I want to reduce. Well, first, 9.1 billion dollars out of a seven
01:13trillion dollar budget, we're not talking about a lot of money here. We're talking about about one
01:18tenth of one percent. That's all. That's point one. Point two, you need to look at what the President's
01:27asking us to cut out. I'll just give you a couple of examples. I didn't make this up.
01:36The President is saying we're giving three million dollars to Iraq to produce Sesame Street. Maybe we could
01:44use that money for something else. The President is saying we're giving three million dollars to Zambia
01:51for circumcisions and vasectomies. The President is saying we don't need to do that. We've got other
01:58priorities. We're giving five hundred thousand dollars to Rwanda to buy electric buses. The President is
02:06saying to us, Congress, we don't need to be spending the money on that.
02:09They're more important things. We're spending $67,000 to give insect powder to kids in Madagascar. I don't
02:21even know what insect powder is, but the President is asking us to cut it out. We're giving $3,600,000
02:31to Haiti for pastry cooking classes, for cyber cafes, for dance focus groups, for male prostitutes.
02:43The President is saying, I don't think so. I don't think that the American people support giving their
02:49hard-earned money to male prostitutes in Haiti. So he's asking us to cut it out.
02:55He's asking us to reduce the budget by $833,000 because some of President Biden's bureaucrats
03:03gave a contract to transgender people, sex workers, and their clients in Nepal.
03:11The President is saying, I don't want to do that. And he's right. That's enough. You get the idea.
03:16That's what I call it spending porn. It triggers your gag reflex. You look at this stuff and you go,
03:22what in God's name? Who decided to do this? Well, Congress didn't. The bureaucrats did.
03:31It's money we appropriated, but we didn't tell them to go spend money $833,000 and give to sex workers in
03:40Nepal. They just took the money we appropriated and used it for that. And so the President is asking,
03:46us to do what's called a rescission, to cancel the spending. Now, I have listened, I've been here
03:55eight years, Mr. President, and I've listened to a whole bunch of people talk about the need to reduce
04:00spending. But you got to watch what people do, not what they say, because talk is cheap. And around here,
04:10I've learned pretty quickly that reducing spending, it's like going to heaven. I want to go to heaven.
04:18I bet you want to go to heaven, Mr. President. I bet our guests in the in the gallery want to go to
04:22heaven. But everybody wants to go to heaven. Raise your hand if you're ready to take the trip today.
04:29Most people, you are, sir, and I admire that, but most people want to live a little longer.
04:34And that's the way it is with reducing spending around here. I want to reduce spending. I support
04:40it, but not just yet, because I've got this project. Well, and I've listened to that.
04:47And I've especially listened to it for the past hundred days. Go get them, President Trump. Reduce
04:53that spending. We're behind you a thousand percent. Well, he has. He has.
04:59One-tenth of one percent. He's asking us to reduce.
05:06And I'm not saying senators shouldn't ask questions and make some changes if they need to be made. But
05:12here's the bottom line. It is gut check time. It is gut check time. You either believe in reducing
05:19spending or you don't. And if you talk the game and say, let's reduce spending and you vote against
05:27this bill, in my opinion, you ought to hide your head in a bag. Because you will be able to cut
05:35the hypocrisy with a knife. It's real, real hard, Mr. President, to preach temperance from a bar stool.
05:45It's gut check time. We need to pass this bill. I yield the floor, Mr. President.

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