The "superCongress" committee of 12 that will decide on budget cuts by Thanksgiving as part of the debt ceiling agreementis unconstitutional, Rep. Ron Paul told CNBC Thursday.
AP
Ron Paul (R)
"I don’t think there’s any doubt about it," said the Texas Republican, who is running for president.
"I would challenge it in the courts," he added. "I would say it is not a constitutional function. There’s no authority to have a 'superCongress' who takes over what the House [of Representatives] is supposed to do" in handling the nation's purse strings.
Democratic and GOP leaders of the House and Senate are expected to each name three lawmakers to form the new 12-member committee in the next couple of weeks. The committee will have until Thanksgiving to come up with a way to cut $1.5 trillion from the federal deficit over the next decade.
Paul added that nowhere in the U.S. Constitution does it say a committee can make budgetary decisions "and then pop something back into the House and Senate and say, 'You have an up or down vote, you can’t take it to a subcommittee or full committee, you can’t negotiate it.' You don’t know what’s going on there."
Paul, who voted against raising the debt ceiling, said the plan worked out is "not going to solve our problems. We have to decide what our country is all about and what the role of government ought to be."
Paul said free-market economists have been predicting this crisis since the U.S. "lost the last link to gold" in 1971. Paul wants a return to the gold standard.
He also thinks any stimulus program from the Federal Reserve won't solve the nation's problems either. "That’s the only thing they know how to do when they’re desperate, even though it makes things worse," he said.
Asked if he would run as an independent or as a third-party candidate if he doesn't win the Republican nomination, Paul said he "has not given that option any consideration."