Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” played as Sen. Rand Paul strolled out to deliver his remarks at CPAC. Paul took the lectern and got straight to the point. The path forward for the Republican Party is respect for the Constitution, and the individual. His 13-hour filibuster served as an expression of that principle. Do we have a Bill of Rights? Do we have a Constitution, and will we defend it? These were the questions he asked of the attendees, and America in general.
Sen. Paul noted that our government is bigger than it’s ever been in our history, and that the interests of the collective are beginning to take precedent over the individual. “As government expands, liberty contracts – and everything America has been, and what it could be, is threatened,” according to Paul. Now, some might see the current cuts through sequestration as a good thing. However, Sen. Paul aptly noted that these cuts only slowed the growth of government, and did relatively little to cut spending. In fact, Sen. Paul said, “even with the sequester, the government is expected to grow by $7 trillion dollars over the next decade.”
Nevertheless, the Obama administration was able to find $250 million to send to Egypt. A country that attacked our embassy, burned our flag, and chanted “death to America,” according to Sen. Paul. As a result, he declared that “not one penny more” should go to countries that burn our flag. On a lighter note, the government is funding a study in Hawaii concerning what menu would be the most palatable for future colonists on the planet Mars. The participants were pro-pizza.
To reverse the erosion of Americans’ individual liberty, Sen. Paul is about to propose a budget that balances in five years. It eliminates the Department of Education, cuts the corporate tax rate in half, guts needless economic regulation, and establishes a flat income tax rate of 17%. Why? It’s because “the only stimulus ever proven to work is leaving more money in the hands of those who earned it,” according to Paul. More importantly, he aptly noted that “for liberty to expand, government must shrink. For the economy to grow, government must get out of the way.”
Sen. Paul concluded that the the Republican Party of old “has become stale and moss-covered. The path forward for the GOP is respect for the Constitution, and the individual.”
CNN’s Politicker blog reports that Jeb Bush, a moderate Republican, doesn’t have his name on the CPAC straw poll ballot.
And don’t miss Next Generation’s members-only coverage of CPAC 2013 — featuring former Congressman Allen West and Michelle Fields. Click here to learn more.
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