Rand Paul’s week of delusion - By Joan Walsh

[DonViejo]

The 2016 hopeful can’t decide if he’s a brave truth-teller or just another bobbing and weaving politician

BY JOAN WALSH


If nothing else, I usually give Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul credit for boldness. But in a publicity barrage this week, the man who’s almost certainly running for president this week behaved more like Mitt Romney than Romney’s two-time rival Ron Paul, Rand’s dad.

We saw Deceptive Paul in an answer to a question from Bloomberg’s Joshua Green about how he’d cut the federal budget. He compared his cuts to “the Penny Plan, which cuts 1 percent a year for five or six years and balances the budget. Many Americans who have suffered during a recession have had to cut their spending 1 percent, and they didn’t like doing it, but they were able to do it to get their family’s finances back in order. I see no reason why government can’t cut 1 percent of its spending.”

Maybe it can, maybe it can’t – but that’s not what Paul is proposing. As Ezra Klein points out, Paul’s budget eliminates the Departments of Commerce, Education. Housing and Urban Development, and Energy, and cuts the State Department budget by more than 50 percent. Maybe, like Rick Perry, Paul couldn’t remember all the agencies he wanted to cut. More likely, he’s doing the GOP shuffle, hiding his stands that are unpopular with voters.

Green did bring out Wingnut Paul once, by asking him whom he’d pick for Fed chair. “Hayek would be good,” he joked, referring to the father of Austrian economics, “but he’s deceased … [Milton] Friedman would probably be pretty good, too, and he’s not an Austrian, but he would be better than what we have.” When Green pointed out Friedman is dead, too, Paul deadpanned, “Yeah. Let’s just go with dead, because then you probably really wouldn’t have much of a functioning Federal Reserve.” Sounds like his old man!

full article:
http://www.salon.com/2013/08/09/rand_pauls_week_of_delusion/

[giftedgirl77]

1. FUCK RAND PAUL

He's such a slimy, grimy bastard.

[blkmusclmachine]

2. Maybe he lies.