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Senator Paul op-ed in today’s Roll Call

admin — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 19:51:17 +0000

Senator Paul penned an op-ed in today’s Roll Call newspaper outlining the importance of tackling the debt ceiling and balancing the budget.

Paul: Senate Leadership Must Focus on Debt Ceiling
By Sen. Rand Paul
Special to Roll Call
July 7, 2011, Midnight

“At the demand of Senate Republicans, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) canceled the scheduled Independence Day recess to address the impending debt crisis that is threatening the future of our economy.

Reid justified his actions by stating that the chamber has “work to do.” According to him, this recess was canceled to discuss the debt ceiling, yet I am now under the impression that this session has been scheduled for antics rather than legislative discussion and debates on the debt ceiling.

After announcing the postponement of the recess because of the economic emergency, the Democratic leadership promptly scheduled discussion of a Libya resolution — a debate that should’ve taken place 90 days ago…”

To read the entire article click HERE

Senator Paul Calls for End to ‘Secret Shopper’ Program, Obama Administration Cancels It

admin — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 03:18:33 +0000

WASHINGTON, D.C. – An expose in Monday’s New York Times unearthed a scheme implemented by the Obama Administration to waste taxpayer dollars by harassing health care providers. In response to this absurd misuse of funds and Obamacare trickery, Sen. Paul was featured as a voice of reason in Tuesday’s Investor’s Business Daily editorial.

“This out-of-control bureaucracy apparently isn’t satisfied with just writing hundreds of new regulations needed to enforce ObamaCare,” Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., an M.D. who has spoken out for doctors in the past, said in an email to IBD.

“They’ve taken to wasting taxpayer dollars harassing doctor’s offices and impeding productivity. One can only assume this Big Brother tactic is part of a larger plan to force doctors to accept government insurance, whether they like it or not,” he said.

Upon Sen. Paul’s bringing light to the absurd Big Brother tactics taking place, the Obama Administration decided to terminate all plans of this investigation. Click here to read more on the survey’s cancellation in its entirety.

‘Cut, Cap, Balance Pledge’ ties conservative choices to debt ceiling vote

admin — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 19:20:27 +0000

Senator Rand Paul, along with other lawmakers, signed the ‘Cut, Cap, Balance Pledge’.

Read this excerpt from an article by Amanda Carey in The Daily Caller:

As budget talks heat up in light of the looming July 4th recess, several conservative groups and lawmakers are coalescing around a pledge that cuts spending across the board, caps government spending, and includes a balanced budget amendment.

It’s called the “Cut, Cap, Balance Pledge” and it’s currently making its way through the corridors of Capitol Hill. Sen. Mike Lee of Utah was the first to sign his name to the pledge last week. But since then, Sens. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Marco Rubio of Florida and Rand Paul of Kentucky have followed suit.

You can read the full story at The Daily Caller HERE

Is Obama above the law?

admin — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 19:10:29 +0000

The George Will asks in the Jewish World Review:

Is Obama above the law?

The U.S. intervention in Libya’s civil war, intervention that began with a surplus of confusion about capabilities and a shortage of candor about objectives, is now taking a toll on the rule of law. In a bipartisan cascade of hypocrisies, a liberal president, with the collaborative silence of most congressional conservatives, is traducing the War Powers Resolution…

You can read the full article at the Jewish World Review HERE

Terrorism Case Exposes Gaps In Refugee Screening: NPR

admin — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 19:09:21 +0000

“Was someone asleep at the switch here? Did someone approve this guy for political asylum even though he’d been in prison as an insurgent? How does that happen?” - Senator Rand Paul

Two Iraqi men accused of trying to send missiles to al-Qaida came to the U.S. as part of a program to resettle thousands of refugees. When one of those men applied to the program, Homeland Security officials didn’t know the military had lifted his fingerprints from a bomb designed to hurt U.S. troop.

You can read the full story at www.npr.org

GOP Leadership holding up Rand Paul’s gun protection amendment?

admin — Thu, 26 May 2011 16:27:40 +0000

Word is that the Senate Republicans are holding up and lobbying against Senator Rand Paul’s gun protection amendment to the PATRIOT ACT. You can read more about it at this Campaign For Liberty post. Related posts:Supreme Court and the 2nd Amendment Rand Paul endorses Term Limits Amendment Senator Rand Paul Pushes Back on PATRIOT Act Extension Related posts:

Senator Paul delivers his first Speech in the Senate – Compromise

admin — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 20:15:33 +0000

TRANSCRIPT:

I am honored by the privilege of serving in the United States Senate. I am honored and humbled by the responsibility of defending our Constitution and our individual freedoms.

I will sit at Henry Clay’s desk. There is likely no legislator from Kentucky more famous than Henry Clay. He served as both the Speaker of the House and Leader of the Senate. He ran for President four times and nearly bested James Polk.

Henry Clay was called the Great Compromiser. During orientation, one of my new colleagues asked me with a touch of irony and a twinkle in his eye, “Will you be a great compromiser?”

I’ve thought long and hard about that question. Is compromise the noble position? Will compromise allow us to avoid the looming debt crisis?

Henry Clay’s life story is, at best, a mixed message. Henry Clay’s great compromise was over slavery. One could argue that he rose above sectional strife to carve out compromise after compromise trying to ward off civil war.

Or one could argue that his compromises were morally wrong and may have even encouraged war, that his compromises meant the acceptance during his 50 years of public life of not only slavery, but the slave trade itself.

In the name of compromise, Clay was by most accounts not a cruel master, but a master nonetheless of 48 slaves. He supported the fugitive slave law until his death. He compromised on the extension of slavery into new states. He was the deciding vote in the House to extend slavery into Arkansas.

Before we eulogize Henry Clay we should acknowledge and appreciate the contrast with contemporaries who refused to compromise.

William Lloyd Garrison toiled at a small abolitionist press for thirty years refusing to compromise with Clay’s desire to ship the slaves back to Africa. Garrison was beaten and imprisoned for his principled stand.

Frederick Douglass traveled the country as a free black man at great personal risk – he was beaten, he was thrown from trains – but was ultimately the living, breathing example of the intellect and leadership that a former slave could provide.

Cassius Clay was a cousin of Henry Clay and an abolitionist.

In the Heidler’s biography of Henry Clay they describe Cassius as follows: “a venomous pen was his first weapon of choice, a bowie knife his second, and because he was so effective with the one, he found it wise to have the other handy.”

Cassius parted ways with Henry Clay when Cassius released a private letter that Henry had written to him that seemed supportive of abolition. Henry disavowed the antislavery letter he had written to Cassius and they never spoke again.

Cassius Clay was an unapologetic abolitionists who called out the slave traders. One night in Foxtown, he was ambushed by the pro-slavery family of Squire Turner. They came at him with cudgels and knives, stabbing him from behind. Tom Turner put a pistol to Cassius Clay’s head and pulled the trigger three times and it misfired three times. Cassius pulled his Bowie knife and rammed it into the belly of the Turner boy, killing him.

Cassius Clay refused to compromise.

Cassius Clay was a hero but he was permanently estranged from Henry Clay. Henry Clay made no room for the true believers, for the abolitionists.

Who are our heroes? Are we fascinated and enthralled by the Great Compromiser or his cousin Cassius Clay?

Henry Clay came within 38,000 votes out of over 2 million votes of being President. He lost the New York delegation barely because an abolitionist third party, the Liberty Party, refused to support him because of his muddled support of slavery. One could argue that Clay’s compromises on slavery cost him the presidency.

Those activist who didn’t compromise – Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Frederick Douglass, and Cassius Clay – are heroes because they said slavery was wrong and they would not compromise.

Today we have no issues that approach moral equivalency with the issue of slavery. Yet we do face a fiscal nightmare and potentially a debt crisis.

Is the answer to compromise?

Should we compromise by raising taxes and cutting spending as the Debt Commission proposes?

Is that the compromise that will save us from financial ruin?

Several facts argue against such a compromise. Government now spends more money than ever before. Raising taxes seems to only encourage more spending.

Government now spends one in four GDP dollars. Twenty-five percent of our nation’s economy is government spending. Any compromise must shrink the government sector and grow the private sector.

Any compromise should be about where we cut federal spending, not where we raise taxes.

The problem we face is not a revenue problem. It is a spending problem. It is spending that is now swollen to nearly a fourth of our economy.

The deficit is nearly $2 trillion annually.

Entitlements and interest will consume the entire budget within a decade, leaving no room for any other spending: nothing for Defense, nothing for infrastructure. No other spending will be possible without adding massively to the debt.

Will the Tea Party compromise? Can the Tea Party work with others to find a solution?

The answer is of course there must be dialogue and compromise but compromise must occur on where we cut spending and by how much.

Even across the aisle, we now have much agreement. Both sides seem to agree that raising taxes in a recession is a disaster.

The compromise must be conservatives acknowledging that we can cut military spending and liberals acknowledging that we can cut domestic spending. Freezing domestic spending at 2010 levels does not significantly delay the coming debt crisis and is at best a diversion from the real budgetary cuts that are necessary.

There is a certain inevitability to this debate as the debt bomb looms and grows perilously large.

As long as I sit at Henry Clay’s desk, I will remember his lifelong desire to forge agreement, but I will also keep close to my heart the principled stand of his cousin, Cassius Clay, who refused to forsake the life of any human simply to find agreement.

This Week In News For Senator Rand Paul

admin — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 01:17:18 +0000

In one week, Senator Rand Paul has taken several bold and proactive steps in getting our
nation’s fiscal house in order. Sen. Paul followed through on his campaign pledge when
he introduced $500 Billion in spending cuts to be enacted in one year. He also introduced
legislation allowing for a full audit of the Federal Reserve, which would deliver answers to the
American people about how their money is being spent in Washington.

On Thursday, Sen. Paul was joined by Sens. Jim DeMint (S.C.), Mike Lee (Utah), Pat Toomey
(Pa.), and Jerry Moran (Kan.) during the first ever meeting of the Senate Tea Party Caucus.
While in response to President Obama’s State of the Union Address, Sen. Paul broadcasted his
own message.

Throughout the week, Sen. Paul continued to appear on a number of television shows where he
articulated the necessity that we downsize big government.

Sen. Paul and Larry Kudlow from CNBC sat down to discuss the budget.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH SEN. PAUL ON THE KUDLOW REPORT

Sen. Paul also appeared on CNN’s American Morning to discuss his proposed $500 Billion in
spending cuts.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH SEN. PAUL ON CNN AMERICAN MORNING

Sen. Paul also joined Fox News’ Neil Cavuto to explain his budget plan.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH SEN. PAUL WITH FOX’S NEIL CAVUTO

Sen. Paul went into further specifics on his most recent legislation with CNN’s John King and
Wolf Blitzer.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH SEN. PAUL ON CNN

Stay tuned for future updates on Sen. Paul. You can follow the Senator’s official Twitter account
here and his YouTube channel here.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the families of Congresswoman Giffords and others killed or injured in today’s shootings. – Senator Rand Paul, MD

RyanH — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 19:30:58 +0000

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Enumerated Powers Make a Comeback

RyanH — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 02:36:32 +0000

By Mona Charen

It was always for our own good. It was always for a very good reason. It was always within the American tradition of this, that, or the other.

That’s what they’ve told us, that’s how they’ve patronized us, for generations, as the long tendrils of the federal government have spread and multiplied into every realm of American life. It had become so utterly unremarkable, this robotic and seemingly inexorable aggrandizement of federal power, that when Speaker Nancy Pelosi was asked, in 2009, where in the Constitution Congress was granted the authority to force people to buy health insurance, she didn’t even seem to understand the question. “Are you serious?” she asked. “Are you serious?”

But Judge Henry Hudson (don’t you love the historically resonant name?) was very serious when he ruled that the Constitution created a federal government of “enumerated powers,” and that limits on those powers have continuing force. He’s not only serious, he’s cautious and learned. And he represents something we wouldn’t necessarily have predicted back in 2008 when a new liberal hegemony was predicted to unfold over the next 25 years — a principled backlash against federal overreach. Those tea party protesters in their Founders costumes may have looked ridiculous to Pelosi and Harry Reid, but their interest in seemingly antique concepts like limited government is showing up more and more. In just one month, a federal judge has ruled that the Commerce Clause cannot be stretched to cover absolutely everything the Congress wishes to do, and a chorus of limited government voices has noisily protested the Federal Communications Commission’s attempt to assert control over the Internet.

It isn’t possible for the former speaker or her allies in the federal juggernaut to dismiss Hudson as “Astroturf.” In a carefully reasoned decision, he took note of Congress’ power to regulate under the Commerce Clause. “But these regulatory powers,” he ruled, “are triggered by some type of self-initiated action. Neither the Supreme Court nor any federal circuit court of appeals has extended Commerce Clause powers to compel an individual to involuntarily enter the stream of commerce by purchasing a commodity in the private market.”