Rand Paul's Budget is Rejected in Washington

Kentucky's junior Senator Rand Paul and two of his freshmen Republican colleagues all had their budget proposals rejected on Wednesday. 

Paul’s budget would be a radical change for the US. It would balance the federal budget in the next five years. It turns Medicaid into a block grant. It sells off federal lands. And it ends the Departments of Commerce, Education, and Energy. On the Senate floor Paul decried Congress for racking up a fifteen trillion dollar national debt.

“The situation has gotten out of control and I think the situation of our deficit and our country threatens our country. And in fact I think it’s the number one threat to our national security and our security as a nation is this overwhelming burden of debt,” says Paul.

Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad says, like other G-O-P budgets, Paul’s isn’t realistic about cutting the deficit because it doesn’t raise taxes at all.

“There’s nothing on the revenue side. In fact there are deep additional tax cuts aimed at the wealthiest among us in all of their plans,” says Conrad.

On Wednesday lawmakers also rejected a budget based on the one President Obama sent to Congress this year. Not a single lawmaker supported it.