Rand Paul Wants To Cut $500 Billion In Federal Spending - Video Interview

[Book]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9tndk8SiUM

Rand Paul Wants To Cut $500 Billion In Federal Spending

Video - Rand Paul on debt and deficits - ABC Subway Series - Aired tonight

Truly outstanding discussion. Jonathan Karl talks to Rand Paul about how he plans to cut spending by $500B and fundamentally change the way Washington works. Foreign aid is the first thing to go, thankfully, and defense is next on the list. How can we afford to send hundreds of billion overseas each year that we don't have. The current run-rate of borrowing 43 cents of every federal dollar isn't sustainable.

:)

[Carl]

Very good video.


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[mightymanx]

If only 1% of his ideas get implemented before he is sniped/scandeled out of office it will still be better than the last 20+ years of what has come out of DC.

I fear at the rate he is going he is only going to last 1 year though.

[sirgonzo420]

If only 1% of his ideas get implemented before he is sniped/scandeled out of office it will still be better than the last 20+ years of what has come out of DC.

I fear at the rate he is going he is only going to last 1 year though.




A lot of people in Kentucky will be quite upset if something terrible befalls Rand...

[Panoptimist]

The only modicum of an indication that the guy is legit: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41313690/ns/politics/

Who would expect anything from the son of Ron "The Mason" Paul?

Anyone still stuck in the left/right paradigm and/or any of its offshoots is too stuck to move.

Listen to the first 15 minutes of this show to find out what "The Constitution" is all about. http://reasonradionetwork.com/20101216/the-orthodox-nationalist-on-agrarianism-part-3

Then read N.H. Webster's "The French Revolution" to learn more about what purposes constitutions really serve (at least from 1789 on).

Alrght, his facts on Israel funding are bit slighted.

From The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (written 2007):


As of 2005, direct U.S. economic and military assistance to israel amounted to nearly $154 billion (in 2005 dollars), the bulk of it comprising direct grants rather than loans. As discussed below, the actual total is significant higher, because direct U.S. is given under unusually favorable terms and the United States provides Israel with other forms of material assistance that are not included in the foreign assistance budget.

Since 1974, some or all of U.S. military aid to Israel has been in the form of loans for which repayment is waived. Technically, the assistance is called loans, but as a practical matter, the military aid is a grant.

Israel now receives on average about $3 billion in direct foreign assistance each year, an amount that is roughly one-sixth of Americas' direct foreign assistance budget and equal to about 2 percent of Israel's GDP. In recent years, about 75 percent of U.S. assistance has been military aid, with the remainder broken down into various forms of economic aid. In per capita terms, this level of direct foreign assistance amounts to a direct subsidy of more than $500 per year for each Israeli. By comparison, the number two recipient of American foreign aid, Egypt, receives only $20 per person and impoverished countries such as Pakistan and Haiti receive roughly $5 per person and $27 per person, respectively.

Three billion dollars per year is generous, but it is hardly the whole story. As noted above, the canonical $3 billion figure omits a substantial number of other benefits and thus significantly understates the actual level of U.S. support. Indeed, in 1991, Representative Lee Hamilton (D-IN) told reporters that Israel was on of three countries whose aid "substantially exceeds the popularly quoted figures" and said the annual figure was in fact more than $4.3 billion.

Most recipients of American foreign aid get their money in quarterly installments, but since 1982, the annual foreign aid bill has included a special clause specifying that Israel is to receive its entire annual appropriation in the first thirty days of the fiscal year. This is akin to receiving your entire annual salary on January 1 and thus being able to earn interest on the unspent portion until you used it.

The CRS estimates that it costs U.S. taxpayers "between $50 and $60 million per year to borrow funds for the early, lump-sum payment." Moreover, the U.S. government ends up paying Israel additional interest when Israel reinvests the unspent portion in U.S. treasury bills. According to the U.S. Embassy in Israel, early transfer of FMF funds has enabled Israel to earn some $660 million in extra interest as of 2004.

Along with Egypt and Turkey, Israel is also permitted to apply its entire FMF funding to meet its current year obligations, rather than having to set aside portions to cover expected costs in subsequent years. According to the U.S. General Accounting Office, this "cash flow" method of financing "permits a country to order more defense goods and service than it normally could because less money must be reserved when a contract is signed." Israel can make its payments as long as the United States continues to provide similar amounts of aid, a situation that makes it harder for the United States to reduce its support in the future.

Israel is the only recipient of U.S. economic aid that does not have to account for how it is spent.

Another form of U.S. support is loan guarantees that permit Israel to borrow money from commercial banks at lower rates, thereby saving millions of dollars in interest payments.

Between 1972 and 2006, Washington vetoed forty-two UN Security Council resolutions that were critical of Israel. That number is greater than the combined total of all the vetoes cast by all of Security Council members for the same period and amounts to slightly more than half of all American vetoes during these years.

According to one Israeli negotiator, Ron Pundak, a key representative in the negotiations leading to Oslo and one of the architects of the subsequent framework agreement for the final status talks at Camp David in 2000, "The traditional approach of the State Department...was to adopt the position of the Israeli Prime Minister. This was demonstarted most extremely during the Netanyahu government, when the American government seemed sometimes to be working for the Israeli Minister, as it tried to convince (and pressure) the Palestinian side to accept Israeli offers. This American tendency was also evident during Barak's tenure."