What’s actually weird is borrowing millions of dollars every minute

Published 6:00 am Saturday, April 18, 2026

I have been called a lot of things for taking principled stands. “Weird” is the latest. Most Kentuckians would find it quite weird that a country could spend $2 trillion more than it takes in and call that governance. Our Founders would have found it weird that modern government would allow war to occur without the constitutional approval of Congress.

Ask any family in Bowling Green whether it’s strange to spend $2 trillion more than you bring in. Ask a farmer in Barren County, a small business owner in Morgantown, or a nurse in Scottsville. They balance their budgets because they have to. The federal government is the only institution in America that treats trillion-dollar deficits as normal and calls the people who object to it stubborn.

If anything is weird, it’s borrowing millions of dollars every minute.

A recent columnist says I should be a team player. I am. My team is the American taxpayer. And that team has been losing for decades while Washington ran up a $39 trillion tab. Both parties are responsible for this massive debt. The first Trump administration ran up about $8 trillion over four years and not surprisingly, the Biden administration ran a little over $8 trillion during his term.

I’ve been quite honest with voters. Our national debt is the biggest threat to our national security. I fight big spenders in both parties every day in the Senate. I fight against deficit spending, on principle, regardless of which party is in charge. That is exactly the kind of thinking Congress needs more of, not less.

On the war powers question, the columnist gets the Constitution backwards. The Founders did not give the president unilateral authority to take the country to war. They gave that power to Congress. The only exception to Congress voting to initiate war is when we are under imminent attack.

Our Founders debated extensively over the war clause and concluded that the power should be exclusive to Congress not the President. They did it deliberately, having watched kings drag nations into conflict without the consent of the governed. James Madison wrote that the executive branch is the branch most prone to war. That is precisely why the Founders denied that power to the president alone.

The Constitution is clear on this point. Before the country goes to war, Congress must vote. That requirement exists for a reason. When it has been ignored, the consequences have been serious and lasting, and the American people have paid the price. I didn’t invent this argument. I inherited it from the men who wrote the document.

Americans are not asking Congress to micromanage military operations. They are asking Congress to do the one thing the Constitution requires before our young men and women are sent to war. Vote. Say yes or no. Be on record and accountable.

The columnist is also critical of my vote against the Big Beautiful Bill last year. What he leaves out is that the bill adds over $400 billion to the debt in the first five years and raises the debt ceiling an alarming $5 trillion dollars.

Never in our history has the debt ceiling been raised such an extraordinary amount. Interest on the debt now exceeds a trillion dollars a year. The fact that the columnist believes it is “weird” to oppose this staggering debt is a sad statement of how partisanship causes many to lose their way. That in today’s world, an elected official who opposes debt, even from his own party, is considered “weird,” is truly a topsy turvy world.

Each year, I introduce the Penny Plan Balanced Budget that balances in just five years. When I first introduced this budget if balance by only freezing spending for five years, now (because big spenders in both parties rule), to balance requires a 6% cut each year for five years.

There are more than enough, “go-along-to-get-along” representatives in Congress. To avoid the coming calamity of Social Security and Medicare running out of money in the next few years, voters need to elect more men and women of principle who rise above petty partisanship to take the difficult votes. I, for one, will do all I can to defend the Constitution and our Liberty and our fiscal stability.

—Sen. Rand Paul.