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.