With apologies to the late, great James Agee, let us now praise infamous men.
There’s nothing much for Kentuckians to brag about with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Bowling Green, and Rep. Thomas Massie, R-SomewhereorotherLewisCounty. The Tweedledee and Tweedledum of Congress have over the years used their extreme libertarian views to halt or, more accurately, attempt to halt, various worthwhile legislative initiatives in hopes of reducing the federal government to the size of a mom-and-pop candy shop in Zula-Powersburg (and if you can find that on a map, more power to you).
Suffice to say this pair of neo-nihilists have accomplished next to nothing since staging their non-violent assault on the nation’s capital except in one key area that is worthy of note – they have pissed off a fellow Republican who goes by the name of President Donald J. Trump.
And they have accomplished this for what must be considered a legitimate reason. The national debt is critically too high and Trump, via his so-called One Big Beautiful Bill, intends to add another $2.4 trillion to the jackpot over the next 10 years.
Trump is pushing to extend the tax cuts he ushered in during his first four years in office while adding a couple others for good measure, thus exploding the deficit further. Massie and Paul are a no.
“I’d love to stand here and tell the American people, ‘We can cut your taxes and we can increase spending and everything’s going to be just fine,’” Massie said on the House floor before the lower chamber passed the Trump-backed tax cut and spending measure. “But I can’t do that because I’m here to deliver a dose of reality. This bill dramatically increases deficits in the near term but promises our government will be fiscally responsible five years from now.
“Where have we heard that before?’’ he asked. “How do you bind a future Congress to these promises? This bill is a debt bomb ticking.”
Paul and Massie have somewhat parallel histories. Neither work well with others, attracting derision from other lawmakers for playing kids games with need-to-pass legislation in the balance They are constantly at odds with their party’s leaders — Massie worked to bounce at least two GOP House speakers from the podium and Paul quite famously engaged in a stormy political feud with his fellow Kentuckian, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Louisville, while the latter served as Senate Republican leader.
And they are among the band of brothers, the happy few, who have positioned themselves in front of the congressional express train and yelled “Halt,” although to little avail.
Their persistence, though often nonsensical, can be the target of grudging admiration. There’s something to be said about politicians who stand athwart history armed with a million monkey wrenches that they’re willing to throw into the works. But where their intent fails miserably is the nonchalance they exhibit over how most of the solutions they sell would hurt people, mostly the poor, the Black and brown, the infirmed and others from around the world who need America’s help. Their vision of a government so inconspicuous that it barely exists would prove far worse than the running joke of a Congress the nation is experiencing today.
But their constant harping on the debt is well taken. In the past it was Republicans who screamed bloody murder about the nation borrowing itself into bankruptcy. Now, as Paul accurately noted on CNBC this week, Republican will own the debt if Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill passes the Senate as is.
“Once this bill votes, and this debt ceiling goes through, the debt is owned by the GOP, and there is no more campaigning and saying ‘This is the Democrats.’ It will be owned by the Republicans and I think that’s a huge mistake,” Paul said.
Now, let’s be straight, Republicans already own a huge portion of the debt despite its past efforts to play the innocent. As of 1 p.m. Thursday, the U.S. National Debt Clock showed the U.S. $36.9 trillion in arrears and growing. The debt grew by $8.18 trillion during Trump’s first four years in office, from January 2017 to January 2021. Under President George W. Bush, a Republican who served from January 2001 to January 2009, the debt rose by $6.10 trillion.
But make no mistake, this is a truly bipartisan affair. During former President Barak Obama’s eight years in office, from January 2009 to January 2017, the debt increased by $8.34 trillion while, under fellow Democrat Joe Biden, it increased by $6.17 trillion. And it didn’t matter whether the Democrats or Republicans controlled Congress, the amount grew steadily.
Compare that to the gross domestic product during the first quarter of 2025, which totaled $23.5 trillion, and you might conclude the situation has gotten a bit out of hand, especially if you then also determine that the entire federal government spent $6.75 trillion during fiscal year 2024, meaning the debt is five times what the government managed to spend in one 12-month period. Current debt service is $1.049 trillion, Estimates of current debt service on the budget reach as high as 10 percent.
A number of factors have contributed to the growing problem. Obviously, obligations outpace revenues. Entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare and veterans needs account for about half of all federal spending and they are near impossible to cut. According to USASpending.gov, the Department of Defense has plans to spend $872.9 billion in FY 2025, a potential area for cuts placed off limits by military hawks.
To pay for these programs without the necessary income, Congress has obviously borrowed a lot of dough and, for a while, it wasn’t critical. Interest rates were so low that the dead presidents pictured on the currency were whispering in the ears of lawmakers begging them to bring them home. And they did. But those low-interest rate days are over and done, the debt is accumulating and it’s closing in on time to pay the piper.
Yet lawmakers tend to ignore the nation’s growing debt for understandable, though problematic, reasons. Reducing it will obviously require a significant tax increase, an outcome that any member of Congress would embrace at his or her own peril. And it would require cost cutting, thus inhibiting vital programs that so many people are counting on.
Just how to go about achieving the goal will, obviously require some doing. Trump slashing taxes, adding what the Congressional Budget Office estimates will result in further debt, is, to use a technical term, pretty stupid. Trump maintains his program cuts sought by DOGE, his Department of Government Efficiency, will offset some of the tax cut costs. But DOGE cuts to vital domestic programs, totaling a claimed $175 billion in targeted savings, are questionable and are being done in what appears to be an indiscriminate manner. DOGE has not released a work product or conducted an audit. The investigation was done by a bunch of techies with little or no government experience, providing Trump with a rationale to cut programs he wanted to cut anyway.
Trump also claims his crazy, on-again, off-again tariff scheme will provide the Treasury with additional revenue. Just what sort of guise that economic boondoggle will ultimately take is open to speculation.
Regardless, Massie is one of two Republican House members who opposed the bill. Paul is a no in the Senate thus far, although he indicated, weirdly, that he would vote for the tax cuts if the legislation dropped a provision raising the debt ceiling. Now, how he can vote to add an additional $2.4 trillion to the debt while yammering against the growing debt is reasoning relegated to Paul’s muddled mind.
At any rate, Massie and Paul, especially Massie, deserves credit for bugging the hell out of TACO Trump, the Lord of Mar-a-Lago. Trump said recently that he believes Massie should be voted out of office.
“I don’t think Thomas Massie understands government. I think he’s a grandstander, frankly,” Trump told reporters. “If you ask him a couple of questions, he never gives you answer. He just says I’m a no. He thinks he’s going to get publicity.”
Paul received similar criticism for his recalcitrance. Said Posting on Truth Social, his social media site, Trump said, “Rand Paul has very little understanding of the BBB, especially the tremendous GROWTH that is coming. He loves voting ‘NO’ on everything, he thinks it’s good politics, but it’s not. The BBB is a big WINNER!!!”
In a subsequent post, Trump asserted “the people of Kentucky can’t stand him.”
What’s that old quote, the enemy of my enemy is my friend?