{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.paul.senate.gov/news/article/time-op-ed-why-i-will-vote-to-repeal-obamacare", "TIME Op-Ed: Why I Will Vote to Repeal Obamacare", "2016-12-12", "2016", "2016-12", "Republican", "House", "KY", "Rand Paul", "P000603", "www.paul.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "TIME Op-Ed: Why I Will Vote to Repeal Obamacare \n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\nMonday, December 12, 2016\n\t\nAs a physician, I know well the problems with\u00a0Obamacare. I don\u2019t think anyone has more disdain for this big government takeover of our healthcare system. It needs to be stopped, and we must replace it with reforms that move us in the opposite direction.\r\nI will vote to repeal Obamacare in January. I believe it is something that the Republican Congress\u00a0must\u00a0do.\r\nHowever, in\u00a0our fervor to repeal Obamacare, conservatives should not forget or abandon the principles that make us conservative in the first place. Quirky, arcane rules allow Congress to repeal Obamacare with a simple majority but only if Congress passes a budget first.\r\nAnyone who follows Congress knows that\u00a0Congress only sometimes passes budgets\u00a0and when they do the budgets, even GOP budgets, it never leads to a balanced budget.\r\nRepublicans, including myself, are giddy to repeal Obamacare but I urge a word of caution. We should not abandon the principles of fiscal conservatism in order to repeal Obamacare.\r\nThe budget that we must pass to repeal Obamacare should be a conservative one, one that balances in the foreseeable future. But many Republicans have lost interest in such fiscal niceties. They argue that it doesn\u2019t matter what is in the budget and that it will never lead to a balanced budget. They argue that the budget is just a bunch of meaningless numbers, just a vehicle to repeal Obamacare.\r\nIf that is true, then why don\u2019t we vote for a budget with spending caps that lead to a balanced budget?\r\nWhen something is within our control, we shouldn\u2019t punt or make excuses. But I\u2019m afraid that\u2019s exactly what\u2019s going to happen with our budget.\r\nFor sure, the\u00a0Republican majority has a mandate to repeal Obamacare\u00a0and stop the government takeover and ruining of our healthcare system. But that can\u2019t be all we are about here, and our first attempt to show who we are is in grave danger.\r\nCongressional leaders are now engaged in a misguided attempt to attach Obamacare repeal to a budget that increases spending, increases debt and does little to nothing to fix our fiscal mess.\r\nThere is no reason for this. Often up here we are told, \u201cWe need the White House to cut spending and debt.\u201d Well, we have that now, along with total control of Congress.\r\nThen the next excuse often is \u201cwe need 60 votes to get anything past a Democrat Senate.\u201d Well, this is the one case that is not true. All budgets require only a simple majority of 51 to pass. Not a single Democrat vote is needed in either the House or the Senate to pass a budget that cuts spending and taxes.\r\nThat means Republicans own this budget, all of it. If it doesn\u2019t cut spending, that\u2019s on the Republican party. If it continues to pile on debt, we own it.\r\nI for one don\u2019t want to be party to that.\r\nThat\u2019s why I\u2019m urging my colleagues and leaders to get serious about spending and the size of government, while also repealing Obamacare.\r\nWe don\u2019t need to negotiate with Democrats to do it. We don\u2019t need a single vote, which is good, because we aren\u2019t going to get it.\r\nOur budget should have a plan to balance, preferably in the five-year window that matches out commitment from the Balance Budget Amendment.\r\nBut right now there is no such plan. Republican leaders are mistakenly planning to punt on the budget, thinking they must do so to pass Obamacare repeal. But this is a false choice.\r\nWhat would it take to balance the budget in five years? Simply, freezing spending leads to a balance in less than five years. To balance the budget doesn\u2019t even require any cuts in spending, it simply says let\u2019s pause while our revenues catch up to our expenditures, just like any family would if they found themselves stretched too thin.\r\nUnder my plan, the budget would balance in five. There are others, such as the Heritage Foundation, who propose a seven-year plan. Unfortunately, the budget currently being considered by Republicans never leads to balance, not in a thousand years.\r\nThe larger point is, government must begin to live within its means if we are to keep to the promises we made to the American people this fall.\r\nWhile Obamacare repeal is a laudable goal, and one I share, it cannot be our only goal. We must regain our hold as the fiscally responsible party and put our nation back on track to balanced budgets.\r\nThese budgets don\u2019t have much margin for error. Just three Republican Senators standing up and saying \u201cNO MORE DEBT\u201d can do the trick. It can\u2019t pass without nearly every Republican being for it. So here\u2019s hoping there will be a few more Senators who join me in saying to our leadership, enough. Enough debt. Enough borrowing from our children.\r\nI am taking this stand \u2014 I will not vote for any budget that doesn\u2019t have a plan to balance, regardless of what is attached to it and I\u2019m calling on other conservatives in the Senate to take the same stand. Let\u2019s repeal Obamacare, and let\u2019s do it with a budget that leads us to balance in the near term.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.paul.senate.gov/news/article/time-op-ed-why-i-will-vote-to-repeal-obamacare"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8473640773445368, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}