Sen. Paul seeks to strip Egypt funding with amendment to Postal Service bill, setting up skirmish

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) plans to introduce an amendment that would end funding to Egypt to legislation meant to keep the United States Postal Service from falling into bankruptcy.

Paul's addition could spark another skirmish between Senate Republicans and Democrats, stalling legislation from moving forward in the upper chamber.

"I rise today to introduce an amendment that would end aid to Egypt until they end the prosecution of our U.S. citizens," Paul said ahead of a vote on the Postal Service bill, S. 1789. "I offered this amendment earlier this spring when Egypt was detaining our citizens, these pro-democracy workers and not letting them leave the country. Since then they have let them leave the country, but sort of in an insulting fashion, in the sense that they have let them leave, when we had to pay them basically ransom. We had to pay $5 million in ransom."

Paul's announcement came just before the Senate voted 74 to 22 on a motion to move forward on cloture of the Postal Service bill.

It's not clear though whether Paul will even get a chance to add his amendment to the bill. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) urged Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to only allow amendments related to the Postal Service.

"I would hope that every member of the Senate understands that this is a hugely important issue and that aid to Egypt doesn’t have a heck of a lot to do with saving the United States Postal Service," Sanders told reporters on Tuesday. "I would hope that we would have a debate on amendments dealing with the postal service. I think that is fair to the American people."

Paul's plan to introduce his amendment and Sanders's opposition to unrelated amendments to the Postal Service bill suggests that there could be another skirmish between Republicans and Democrats on amendments.

Republicans and Democrats previously came to a compromise over a highway transportation bill and unrelated amendments. After a series of negotiations, Reid allowed a limited number of amendments be tacked onto the highway bill in exchange for Republicans allowing a vote on a measure for the highway bill to move forward.