Senator Rand Paul discusses state of the budget

Add Us On GoogleAdd as a preferred source on Google

By Marisela Burgos - bio | email

LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE) - Senator Rand Paul made a stop in Louisville Saturday afternoon to promote his new book and the tea party principles. The book is titled, "the Tea Party goes to Washington. The book details their platform, which believes in limited government and balanced budgets.

This afternoon, outside Barnes & Noble on Summit Plaza Drive, Paul answered questions about the budget. Paul said his fear is the debt will continue to grow. He believes we could face a crisis. He said a solution is to cut back on extra spending. Currently, lawmakers are punching numbers and struggling to find ways to cut spending on a two week extension. President Barack Obama signed the short-term plan, including $4 billion in cuts in order to keep the federal government from shutting down.

"Just next year the President's budget will add 1.65 trillion dollars. It's just to much. Now, the Republican alternative is a little bit better, but it's not enough. My fear is that if we keep adding trillion of dollars of debt every year that we could face a crisis in this country where we can't pay our debt," Paul said.

While a deadline is looming, Paul believes things should be done differently in Capitol Hill.

"They are not doing what they are supposed to be doing and I think people are going to get annoyed and upset with them because they've run up this massive deficits, but they aren't deliberating, running it through committee's the way they should be," Paul said.

President Obama wants both sides to come together, hoping for a budget compromise. While Paul said he does not want a government shutdown, but he said he wants Congress to responsibly budget their money.

"Interest on the debt is a priority. We need to do that social security payments is a priority -medicare is a priority, but we can't spend it on everything else and so a lot of the things that government should be doing and need to do less of, so we have enough money for the primary functions," he said.