Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is vowing to obstruct the budget deal as long as he can, seeking more time to deliberate and expose its flaws.
“I will continue this filibuster as long as there are enough votes here to allow it to continue,” he said on the Senate floor Thursday.
Senior staffers for Paul tell Breitbart News that the Kentucky lawmaker’s objections forced Senate leadership to attempt to end debate on the budget deal, resulting in a filibuster.
“A Filibuster in the Senate is the act of forcing the leadership to attempt to end debate. They can do this by time and votes. They have to wait one day plus one hour and then they can attempt to cut off debate with 60 votes. If they succeed then 30 more hours are allowed,” senior staffers explained to Breitbart.
“So a filibuster of this bill causes them to have to get a supermajority and wait multiple extra days with full public debate in front of the American people for this trash heap of a bill,” they added.
In order to continue blocking the bill, Paul will need to muster at least 40 votes in opposition in order to prevent a 60 vote supermajority, which would advance the agreement.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) filed cloture on the bill Wednesday night. Paul staffers said that the vote could occur as early as 1 a.m. Friday.
“We’re in the middle of a filibuster,” Paul said on the floor. “This filibuster will go on to about 1:00 in the morning and then we will find out who the true conservatives in this town are.”
He continued:
If you are conservative, you will say, “There is no way I’m going to vote to give an unlimited power to the president to borrow money.” If you are a conservative, you’re going to say, “We shouldn’t be exceeding the budget caps. If anything, we should be passing more stringent budget caps.” It disappoints me greater than I can possibly express that the party that I belong to that should be the conservative party doesn’t appear to be conservative. This is a big problem.
Conservatives have cringed at the budget agreement, which raises federal spending limits for two years, suspends the debt limit until March 2017, and engages in gimmicks to meet its goals.
Paul, a Republican presidential candidate, called for a deal that does reduce spending and borrows less money.
“The debt threatens our national security, and yet we just want to pile it on, pill it on,” he said. “This deal will do nothing but explode the debt. In fact, it doesn’t even limit how much the debt can go up. We’re giving the president a blank check.”
UPDATE:
A spokesman for Sen. Rand Paul emails:
Sen. Paul has been and continues to filibuster the unlimited debt limit increase. Tonight at 1:00 am, the Majority Leader will attempt to end Sen. Paul’s filibuster with a cloture vote. If 41 Senators stand with Sen. Paul, the filibuster will continue.
Watch: