A Teleconference With Rand Paul: 500 Billion Dollars In Cuts

Written By : John Hawkins

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul has announced 500 billion in suggested cuts and he’s having a teleconference to discuss the cuts. What follows are my notes, not quotes, from the meeting.

Opening Statement

We introduced a bill that would cut spending by 500 billion dollars. We also had our first Senate/Tea Party caucus today.

Q&A Session

Q: You don’t seem to be suggesting any Social Security cuts. Do you plan on addressing that later?

A: Yes. The reason we chose this tactic was to show people that we could cut 500 billion dollars without even touching entitlements.

I think you can fix Social Security by gradually raising the age of eligibility and means testing. I think the people are ready to fix this and the other option is to eventually default. We are going to introduce a bill to do that later this year.

Q: What’s your take on Mubarak and Egypt?

A: I think when there are mass protests about autocratic rule, we should let that be determined within their country without our interference unless US lives as at stake.

Q: No Child Left Behind is unpopular.

A: No Child Left Behind doubled expenditures and the size of the Department of Education. A lot of teachers don’t like it, but they want to fix it by raising the amount spent on it. We should just scrap it.

Q: There have been two cancer drugs that are being reviewed and FDA approval is possibly being withdrawn. Do you think it’s a sign of rationing?

A: Yes, I do. I have used Avastin. I know someone who was projected to die in 4 months and it kept her alive 5 years. It’s a miraculous drug. When you’re dying and you have a couple of years remaining, that should be a decision for you and your doctor, not the FDA. Sometimes drugs take a little time to figure out if they work and the government shouldn’t be taking the lead on deciding what drugs can be covered.

Q: Donald Berwick has been renominated. What do you think?

A: Donald Berwick would be great in say, Britain, but not here. He wants to ration health care. I’m not a fan.

Q: Craig Becker was renominated, too.

A: I’m not really familiar with him. So, both of those will require Senate confirmation? (Yes)

Q: Do you have any plans to try to close the Department of Education? Will you get Michelle Rhee to help?

A: Maybe. She sounds great.

Q: Could you mention a few more details about the Social Security bill you want to introduce? What about Medicare?

A: It won’t deal with Medicare. I’m new enough to think we can fix things; so I want to deal with Social Security first. I think young people are willing to embrace having the age moved back.

Q from me: The military is a big part of our budget. Should we make deep cuts there?

A: I think there is a possibility for savings. But, I think the most important Constitutional function is the military. There is room for expenditures, too. This is something we will have to compromise on with Democrats. Ultimately, we will have to do that. We have a 3% reduction from 2010 levels in our current bill. If you don’t touch the military, you don’t balance the budget. We can’t have unlimited spending on the military.

Q: Has the CBO scored your bill?

A: Not yet.

Q: Coal. Kentucky has huge reserves. 22% of our energy comes from coal. Half of our electric power comes from coal. Under the auspices of clean streams they are going to hammer the coal industry, cost a lot of jobs, and reduce production.

A: I want to bring most regulations back and have them voted on in Congress. Any regulation that will cost the country $100 million or more should have to be voted on in Congress. We also need to work to repeal a hundred of the most onerous regulations. We want to make sure the government doesn’t cripple the industry. The Obama administration is trying to kill coal.

0

Anonymous

The reason we chose this tactic was to show people that we could cut 500 billion dollars without even touching entitlements.

Well then I hate to say it, but I think you’re going to fail. Not that I think you won’t be able to find $500 billion in non-entitlement spending you can cut, but it won’t solve the problem that led to this overspending in the first place.

In all honesty, pork isn’t the problem. It’s a bad thing whenever it happens and it should certainly stop, but even if we ended all pork-barrel spending tomorrow it wouldn’t do more than put a small dent in the deficit or the debt. The big elephant in the room is entitlement spending. Spending has gotten completely of control because politicians were too eager to hand out entitlements and too timid to cut them after voters became accustomed (that is, addicted) to them, which is why true conservatives opposed entitlement spending in the first place and what we warned people would happen if the government started giving people handouts.

Anonymous

I respect what you’re saying, and in a certain sense agree. But, I don’t think Paul is saying don’t cut entitlements. The timid politicians you refer to aren’t going to be brought on board telling them they’ve got to touch the “third rail” of entitlement spending. And reinforcing the notion that the only way you can start to touch the deficit is through entitlements tells these politicians “screw the deficit”. If you can get them on board with the notion that working on the deficit isn’t political suicide, you can start to bring them around to the prospect of working on entitlements.

Anonymous

I respect what you’re saying, and in a certain sense agree. But, I don’t think Paul is saying don’t cut entitlements.

I don’t either. I think he wants very badly to cut entitlement spending but knows he wouldn’t get any support from the politicians whose jobs would be on the line if the cuts went through, which is probably most of them. I do applaud him for at least trying to get a serious anti-spending movement started. But I don’t think it’ll make a difference unless and until he can build up enough political momentum to start taking large chunks of flesh out of the bloated cow that is the federal welfare state.

And reinforcing the notion that the only way you can start to touch the deficit is through entitlements tells these politicians “screw the deficit”.

True, but on the other hand, it could also worsen the problem in the interim.

For instance, a spend-happy politician may decide to use those “cut” funds to increase the budget for entitlement programs. After all, in their minds the money was already going to be spent anyway, right? So if that $500 billion isn’t going to delinquent federal contractors or the pet projects of a dozen pork-addicted Senators, what’s the harm in discreetly funneling it into Social Security or Medicare so they can stave off the inevitable for another few election cycles?

Or when those spending cuts are made, tax-and-spend liberals will have an easier time saying “okay, we’ve cut spending as much as we can, now it’s time for tax hikes”.

Or, and this is the big one, when Rand Paul manages to cut $500 billion in unnecessary spending and it doesn’t do anything, the left will use that to damage the credibility of the anti-spending movement. Because realistically, cuts to non-entitlement spending won’t do much of anything to solve the problem. Any cut to unnecessary spending is obviously a good thing, but I think we both know that every time a conservative manages to cut spending and things don’t magically get better overnight, the left will use that to undercut the anti-spending movement. Especially if the right makes the monumental mistake of promoting these relatively small spending cuts as some sort of miracle cure.

I guess what I’m really saying is, getting spending under control is going to be a very long-term project. Really my point was aimed more at the American people than at Rand Paul. I’m sure he is well aware that entitlement spending is the larger problem and $500 billion in non-entitlement cuts is not going to accomplish much. Hell, in the short term it may even make things worse. What I’m saying is WE shouldn’t get our hopes up that these relatively small spending cuts will fix anything all by themselves. Because when they inevitably don’t, or when things actually get worse in the meantime, people will get discouraged and the anti-spending bandwagon will lose support.

Don’t get me wrong, I support this as a short-term effort to curb wasteful spending. And I am crossing every finger I have (which makes it damn hard to type lemme tell you) that Rand Paul can use this to whip up an anti-spending frenzy in Washington. I’m just saying, this bill alone isn’t going to be a miracle cure and we shouldn’t pretend otherwise.

Anonymous

mightysamurai,

Very well said.

Anonymous

Social security age really needs to be tied to the median life expectancy for the US for that year.

Set it up to follow some logical pattern based on real world inputs (that can’t be tinkered with) say median age of death minus 10 years or something along those lines. Readjust it every year. That’s the only way social security has a shot of staying solvent.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_YWXM6Q6QGELGTT334IQMWB774Q David

It will be painful. Personally I’d rather start getting Social Security at age 75 than never.

Anonymous

You probably have a better shot of reaching 75 being alive today than working folks did of reaching 62 in the 1930s.

Anonymous

Life expectancy then was right under 60. Now it’s close to 80.

Folks now have it pretty good compared to those people in the 1930s who were more likely to die without collecting than they were to ever see a penny of their money come back to them.

Anonymous

Hotair.com has a write up on the Democratic response to any attempt to reform or privatize Social Security or Medicare: The Republicans are going to end those programs and want old people to die.

Harry Reid has stated there will be no Senate action in reforming those programs under his watch.

Again, the left is the problem with this country. Time to start working on 2012′s Senate primaries today. Obama is already in campaign mode, time for the right to do so as well.

Liberalism: Fucking the country up daily.

Who Is Brett Kimberlin?

Ads

Users Online