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Rand Paul Says Open Economy Needed Over Debt

Neil Campbell
Neil lives in Canada and writes about society and politics.
Published: December 26, 2020
Rand Paul
Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky speaking at the 2013 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland (Image: Gage Skidmore/Flickr/CC BY SA )

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said in a Christmas Day interview with Newsmax in response to questions about the dispute for an additional $1 trillion in relief spending in the COVID-19 stimulus package, “I think what we should do is actually open the economy. The economy has been recovering…The places that are suffering are places that are still shut down. Industries, restaurants are suffering. Hotels are suffering. I think we need to open the economy and not borrow more money.” 

Paul disagreed with his own Party when it came to the issue of additional spending, “You know, we don’t have a rainy day fund. We don’t have a savings account. It’s not like I can walk over to the Federal Reserve and open it up and say ‘Ah hah! There’s money! I’ll just give it to people’.” 

“It’s also inconsistent with our philosophy. We aren’t the party that’s supposed to borrow money and pass it out. We’re supposed to be wanting to conserve the money. I think it’s a false choice to say ‘Oh, well the Democrats want $2 trillion and the Republicans want $1 Trillion, so $1 trillion is Conservative’.”

When asked about what he thinks of the situation in big cities suffering from extended CCP Virus lockdown measures, Paul is not impressed, “They are wanting bailouts, too. So if you bailout people who are keeping the economy locked down, what are they likely to do? Keep it locked down…The only thing that will get DeBlasio and Cuomo to finally open up is when they run out of other people’s money.”

CCP virus lockdown
Lockdown in the name of slow the spread of CCP virus is every where (Image: Pixabay / CC0)

“We shouldn’t be rewarding their bad behavior.”

Paul, who considers himself a “libertarian” or “constitutional” conservative, called today the worst time in American history when it came to power becoming more and more centralized. He said that nobody ever intended for Governors to become “Czars or dictators in charge of the economy.”

He noted that in his state, Governor Andy Beshear (D), has used the CCP Virus as an excuse to implement lockdowns in his state. Indoor and outdoor dining are prohibited in Kentucky and children currently do not attend school, “We’re worse than New York City right now in Kentucky. Our Governor has shut the schools down even though all of the science shows that, and all of the evidence [shows], that you really aren’t having a surge when you have the schools open.”

Paul said there’s a difference “between good advice and a mandate” while calmly disclosing he lost two close friends to the Virus this past week. “I’m not saying it’s not deadly. I’m not saying there’s not good advice. If you’re 85 years old and you ask me should you go to church and should you sit there for two hours? I’d say my best advice is: don’t…But I would never mandate you can’t go to church. I would never mandate you close the church.”

When asked if he thought the stimulus plan would pass, Paul was certain it would because “The one thing they always come to an agreement on [in Washington] is spending money we don’t have….They really are not concerned about the debt or what’s going to happen to the country in the future. That’s somebody else’s problem.”

Sen. Paul says there’s no concern for the future for “our kids or grandkids. It’s all about the immediacy…You can print out money and give it to people until they discover you’ve doubled the money supply and then it’s worth half as much…We had a $3 trillion dollar debt last year. This year we’re looking at a $2 trillion dollar debt. I think there are ramifications to borrowing so much money.”

The Kentucky Senator is also concerned about what he calls the institutionalization of unemployment, “If you give people more for not working than they get typically for working, you institutionalize unemployment.”

“When President Obama extended it, we had 99 weeks of unemployment. They found out that if you were going to employ me and I came in and I had been unemployed for 99 weeks, but this [other] person came in and they’ve been unemployed for 3 weeks. Guess who they hired? So it’s a disservice. They think you’re helping people by making unemployment longer, but you’re actually hurting them.”