RAND PAUL: FEDERAL GOVERNMENT HAS BECOME ‘ENORMOUS MONSTER WITH TENTACLES INTO EVERY ASPECT OF YOUR LIFE’

RAND PAUL: FEDERAL GOVERNMENT HAS BECOME ‘ENORMOUS MONSTER WITH TENTACLES INTO EVERY ASPECT OF YOUR LIFE’


Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), a likely 2016 Republican presidential candidate, fired up a nearly two-thousand-strong crowd with a keynote speech to the Alabama Republican Party’s Winter Dinner on Friday night, right before the White House hopeful makes a swing through South Florida.

Paul was met with several standing ovations throughout the speech, including at the end, in an address filled with many of the major themes he’s likely to pursue assuming he makes a bid for the White House.

“I have good news and bad news: The good news is your government is open,” Paul said. “The bad news is your government is open. You remember there was this shutdown about a year ago and in Washington everyone was clamoring, everyone was worried. I went home to Kentucky and you know what they said: ‘Why in the hell did you open it back up?’”

Paul shifted into discussing how different Washington is from the rest of America.

“When I was first elected, I proposed that we cut $500 billion in spending, and everybody in Washington said ‘Oh my goodness, this guy is crazy—he wants to really cut spending, he wants to really balance the budget,’” Paul said. “I got home back in Kentucky, and you know what they said? They said that’s a good start. They said now what are you going to do about the $18 trillion in debt? They’re not even concerned just with the deficit. In the real world, the people want us to balance the budget every year and actually do something about the $18 trillion debt.”

Paul noted the difference in culture is largely due to the liberal media on Capitol Hill and throughout D.C.

“The thing is is that the media, the liberal media, the people who call us flyover country America, know nothing about us,” Paul said. “They don’t represent us. They don’t have our values. And the thing is is that somehow Washington gets distracted into thinking this is what America is really about. Raise your hand if you’ve spent more than you bring in chronically for the last 10, 20 or 30 years.”

No hands went up in the entire audience.

“Nobody does that,” Paul said. “Everyone balances their family budget. They think we’re extremists. Somebody said ‘oh this is extreme.’ And I said, ‘to balance the budget, to only spend what comes in, is extreme?’”