Freedom Index 119-1

During consideration of a budget resolution “setting forth the congressional budget for the United States government for fiscal year 2025” (Senate Concurrent Resolution 7), Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) submitted an amendment to have House and Senate committees recommend changes in law within their jurisdictions that would collectively reduce the deficit by approximately $1.4 trillion through fiscal 2034.

The Senate rejected Paul’s amendment on February 21, 2025 by a vote of 24 to 76 (Roll Call 77). We have assigned pluses to the yeas because trillion-dollar annual deficits and the ballooning national debt are not sustainable. For fiscal year 2024 alone, which ended on September 30, 2024, the federal deficit was $1.8 trillion, which was added to the national debt. Most of the spending fueling runaway deficits and debt is unconstitutional. Paul’s defeated amendment fell far short of the cuts needed to eliminate deficit spending, but it would at least have been a step in the right direction.

During consideration of a budget resolution for fiscal 2025 (Senate Concurrent Resolution 7), Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) offered an amendment to protect access to "reproductive healthcare," including "fertility treatment services" such as in vitro fertilization (IVF).

The Senate rejected Duckworth's amendment on February 21, 2025 by a vote of 49 to 51 (Roll Call 82). We have assigned pluses to the nays because healthcare is not the role of government, and neither abortion nor IVF is healthcare. Despite healthcare not being one of the powers enumerated to Congress in Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, the term "reproductive health services" has been codified into federal law. It encompasses the life-destroying practices of IVF and other assisted reproductive technologies, through which most embryos conceived outside the womb are aborted or indefinitely frozen. If Congress, as affirmed in the Declaration of Independence, holds that all people are "created equal" and "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights," then it should secure the first of those rights — the right to life — by rejecting any federal protections or support for abortion and cryo-orphaning entirely.

H. J. Res. 35 would overturn the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2024 “Waste Emissions Charge” rule, which imposed annual fees on oil and gas facilities that emit methane above certain thresholds. The resolution blocks the EPA from imposing this rule — intended to curb greenhouse-gas emissions — on petroleum and natural-gas systems.

The Senate passed H. J. Res. 35 on February 27, 2025 by a vote of 52 to 47 (Roll Call 97). We have assigned pluses to the yeas because neither the EPA nor its methane-emissions-fee rule are authorized under the Constitution. Moreover, the rule was driven by the false climate-change narrative that serves as a pretext for implementing the UN’s Agenda 2030, which undermines national sovereignty and promotes centralized, global control.

S. 9, the "Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2025," would ensure that only real (i.e., biological) women and girls compete in women's sports that are operated, sponsored, or facilitated by federal funding. "Transgender" women and girls — i.e., biological males who "identify," or pose, as females — would be prohibited from competing.

The Senate did not vote directly on S. 9, but on a motion to invoke cloture (and thus limit debate) so the bill could be voted on. The motion to invoke cloture was rejected on March 3, 2025 by a vote of 51 to 45 (Roll Call 100; a three-fifths majority of the entire Senate is required to invoke cloture). We have assigned pluses to the yeas because the federal government should not use taxpayer money to facilitate biological males competing against real women and girls.

During consideration of a continuing appropriations bill to fund the federal government through the end of fiscal 2025 (H.R. 1968), Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) offered an amendment to reduce funding levels for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). A press release from Paul’s office after the vote explained that the amendment would have codified “Secretary of State Rubio and DOGE’s cuts to foreign aid” and would have cut “most of the waste, fraud, and abuse that has plagued USAID for decades.”

The Senate rejected Paul’s amendment on March 14, 2024 by a vote of 27 to 73 (Roll Call 132). We have assigned pluses to the yeas because foreign aid, not being one of the enumerated powers granted to the federal government by the U.S. Constitution, is unconstitutional. In fact, foreign aid should be not just reduced, but eliminated entirely.

During consideration of a budget resolution to establish “the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2025” (House Concurrent Resolution 14), Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) offered an amendment to reduce the increase in the national debt limit in the bill from $4 trillion to $500 billion. The debt limit is the maximum amount the federal government is allowed to borrow.

The Senate rejected Paul’s amendment on April 4, 2025 by a vote of 5 to 94 (Roll Call 179). We have assigned pluses to the yeas because Congress should cut spending rather than raise the national debt limit, which was $36.1 trillion at the time of this vote. Of course, though raising the debt limit $500 billion is better than raising it $4 trillion, it should not be raised at all. In fact, by restoring constitutional government, spending would be reduced to the point that the U.S. government once again could operate on a surplus and the national debt would be reduced.

During consideration of a budget resolution for fiscal 2025 (House Concurrent Resolution 14), Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) offered an amendment to increase the federal minimum wage to at least $17 an hour over five years.

The Senate rejected Sanders' amendment on April 5, 2025 by a vote of 47 to 52 (Roll Call 184). We have assigned pluses to the nays because the "Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938," which mandates a federal minimum wage for nearly every employee in the United States, is unconstitutional. Nothing in the Constitution authorizes Congress to set the wages of non-federal or private employees. In fact, Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 of the Constitution limits Congress to regulating "Commerce … among the several States," preventing interference by the federal government in intrastate economic matters. The 10th Amendment reinforces that all powers not delegated to the federal government are reserved "to the States respectively, or to the people."

H. J. Res. 20 would overturn a 2024 Department of Energy rule, titled "Energy Conservation Program: Energy Conservation Standards for Consumer Gas-fired Instantaneous Water Heaters," that imposed new requirements on gas-fired instantaneous water heaters and effectively banned the sale of non-condensing models.

The Senate passed H. J. Res. 20 on April 10, 2025 by a vote of 53 to 44 (Roll Call 207). We have assigned pluses to the yeas because the federal government should not impose regulatory standards on consumer products. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution does not authorize Congress to regulate consumer products; this is reserved to the states, as the 10th Amendment affirms.