My new townhall.com article on Rand Paul’s filibuster and Obama’s drones: http://townhall.com/columnists/julieborowski/2013/03/09/rand-paul-highlights-obama-and-john-mccains-horrible-civil-liberties-records-n1529126
Originally posted at FreedomWorks.org.
23 more Republican Senators (edit: now 19!) to go!
Senator Rand Paul recently endorsed Mitt Romney on the Sean Hannity Show on FOX. Does this make him a sell out? Or did he compromise politically to advance liberty?
Originally posted at FreedomWorks.org.
The Senate is expected to vote on four competing budget plans introduced by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) today. Passing an annual budget for the federal government is a fundamental responsibility of Congress. Yet under Harry Reid’s leadership, the Senate has not passed a budget in over three years and no Democrats in the Senate have even offered a budget proposal this year.
All of these proposed budgets would be an improvement from the status quo but Rand Paul’s Platform to Revitalize America shines above the rest. It would repeal ObamaCare, reform the tax code, block grant Medicaid to the states, reform Social Security, and balance the federal budget in just five years without raising taxes.
Most Republicans pay a lot of lip service to cutting spending but their actions rarely live up to their limited government rhetoric. But true fiscal conservatives like Rand Paul actually walk their talk. His budget plan is the only one that will abolish entire departments. The Departments of Education, Energy, Commerce, and Housing and Urban Development would be axed under his plan. Poof! These needless bureaucracies would be gone. That’s what I call a real budget plan. This is the strongest budget plan in a generation and all senators serious about reducing the size and scope of government should stand behind Rand Paul’s budget.
The Rand Paul budget would slow up the regulatory state. The American people are forced to comply with thousands and thousands of outrageous new rules and regulations issued by the executive branch annually. The term “major rule” refers to any rule or regulation that has an annual economic impact of $100 million or more. Regulatory agencies issued 100 major rules in 2010 without any input from our elected representatives in Congress. Anyone who remembers the classic School House Rock! video that shows how a bill becomes a law can testify that unelected bureaucrats in the executive branch aren’t supposed to make the laws.
The executive branch has completely disregarded article 1, section 7 of the Constitution, which outlines the process of creating a new law and clearly gives that power to the legislative branch. Rand Paul’s budget would implement the REINS Act which requires congressional approval for all “major rules” proposed by the executive branch. The REINS Act wouldn’t be necessary if the Constitution was strictly followed in Washington, DC. Congressional representatives are the most accountable to the people and must be allowed to stop harmful regulations that will erode individual liberty and crush job growth.
Under the Paul plan, Americans would no longer fear sexual harassment at the airport since the plan would privatize the TSA. Rand Paul knows a little something about how incompetent and abusive the TSA can be. He was detained at the Nashville airport for hours and ended up missing his speech at the March for Life back in January. The TSA picked the wrong guy to mess with. Now the senator is pursuing his mission to abolish the TSA with a vengeance.
As the budget report card complied by Dean Clancy and Daniel Anderson shows, Rand Paul’s plan earns an A+. The plans introduced by Sens. Mike Lee and Toomey earn an A- and B+, respectively. All three plans would balance the federal budget and save trillions of dollars within the next decade. But as FreedomWorks noted in our key vote notice, we do have serious concerns about the health care reform proposal in the Lee Budget and the Medicare provisions in the Toomey and Lee budgets—proposals that trace their roots to the Heritage Foundation plan that provided the template for RomneyCare and ObamaCare.
Why haven’t more Republicans rallied behind Rand Paul’s plan? Only seven senators had the courage to vote for Rand Paul’s almost identical budget plan last year. Do most Republicans senators want to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic? Simply nibbling around the edges of the budget won’t cut it.
Will the real conservative senators please stand up? The time has come to make your actions match your rhetoric.
New video is up.
Watch Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) teach Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner a thing or two about basic economics in the video below. Rand Paul explaining what F.A. Hayek called “the Pretense of Knowledge” is music to my ears. Geithner should take some notes.
Originally posted at FreedomWorks.org.
Politicians typically break campaign promises more often than not. When an elected official instead chooses to keep their word, he or she deserves recognition for their consistency. With the rise of the Tea Party movement, many lawmakers are talking about cutting government spending. Few politicians, however, are willing to truly walk their talk. Some of those exceptions include new senators such as Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT).
Last week, Sen. Paul along with Senators Lee and DeMint released a plan that would balance the federal budget within five years. It would do so by eliminating entire departments and not increasing taxes by one cent. By the year 2016, we would have a $19 billion surplus. The Cato Institute has posted helpful charts to show the difference between Rand Paul and President Obama’s budget.
The plan has gained traction among true limited government types. Campaign for Liberty has listed some of the main highlights of the balanced budget proposal:
“SPENDING:
· Brings spending near historical average in very first year
– Reduces spending by nearly $4 trillion relative to the President’s budget
– Achieves a $19 billion surplus in FY2016
– Brings all non-military discretionary spending back to FY2008 levels
– Requires the process of entitlement reform, including Social Security and Medicare, with final implementation by FY2016
– Does not change Social Security or Medicare benefits
– Block-grants Medicaid, SCHIP, foods stamps, and child nutrition
· Provides the President’s request for war funding
– Reduces military spending 6 percent in FY2012
· Eliminates four departments:
– Department of Commerce (transfers certain programs)
– Department of Education (preserves Pell grants)
– Department of Housing and Urban Development
– Department of Energy (transfers nuclear research and weapons to Department of Defense)
· Repeals Obamacare
DEFICITS/DEBT:
· Never exceeds $12 trillion in debt held by public
· Creates $2.6 trillion less in deficit spending relative to the President’s Budget
REVENUE:
· Extends all the 2001 and 2003 tax relief
· Permanently patches the alternative minimum tax
· Repeals Obamacare taxes”
It is refreshing to see that Rand Paul’s balanced budget proposal cuts spending in all areas of government including the defense budget. Taxpayers lose if certain parts of the budget are isolated from serious scrutiny. The military budget has nearly doubled over the last ten years. It isn’t reasonable to believe that the Department of Defense (DOD) has spent every dime in the most efficient manner. We agree with Defense Secretary Robert Gates that “it is imperative for this department to eliminate wasteful, excessive and unneeded spending.”
We applaud Rand Paul for staying true to his word. In addition, Sen. Lee has proposed a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution to limit spending to 18 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and require that any effort to raise taxes would need a two-thirds majority vote in both chambers. As it currently stands, government spending consumes approximately 25 percent of our GDP.
These are both modest proposals to rein in federal spending. With our current national deficit at $1.7 trillion, it is radical to continue spending at unprecedented levels. It’s time to determine who is truly serious about cutting government spending. Call your senator and tell him or her to restrain the federal government by supporting Rand Paul and Mike Lee’s balanced budget proposals today.
Thepriceofprayers 