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Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul called Thursday for a "fair and flat tax" that would "blow up" the nation's tax code, offering a proposal his campaign said would cut taxes by $2 trillion over the next decade.

The first-term senator from Kentucky released the outline of a plan to institute a 14.5 percent income tax rate on all individuals and on businesses. It was among the first major policy proposals released by Paul's presidential campaign, although he did not make the full plan available for review.

"Basically my conclusion is the tax code can't be fixed and should be scrapped," he said in an interview with The Associated Press. "We should start over."

Many of the dozen major Republican candidates for president list tax reform among their priorities. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, for example, is among the GOP contenders calling for the wholesale abolition of the Internal Revenue Service -- a position many experts say is unrealistic.

But few have offered detailed proposals, and while Paul said his plan would benefit American both rich and poor, he cited an independent analysis that his campaign did not make available to reporters.

In a column describing highlights of his plan published Thursday in The Wall Street Journal, Paul called for the outright elimination of payroll taxes on workers and of several other federal taxes, including those on gifts and estates, telephone service and all duties and tariffs. He also proposed eliminating all corporate tax subsidies and personal tax deductions, except those for mortgage interest and charitable donations.

Paul says the first $50,000 of income for a family of four would not be taxed and the earned-income tax credit would be preserved.

"In Washington, most Republicans are very tepid and very uninspiring on tax policy," he said in the interview.

It was not clear how Paul would ensure cutting taxes so deeply would not at the same time explode the nation's debt. He wrote in the column that his plan would "reduce the national debt by trillions of dollars over time when combined with my package of spending cuts," but he did not detail those cuts.

In the interview, Paul referred to his previous budget proposals, which include sweeping cuts in foreign and domestic spending. In particular, he has previously called to eliminate all aid to foreign governments, including Israel. He has also proposed eliminating the federal departments of education, energy and housing and urban affairs.

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Rand Paul pitches plan to 'blow up' tax code | Fox News

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul outlined some of the highlights of a "fair and flat tax" plan he was to unveil on Capitol Hill later on Thursday, saying that the measure will not only simplify the nation's sprawling tax code, but will allow Americans to keep more of the money they've earned.

"We have a 70,000-page tax code and we're chasing businesses overseas," the Republican lawmaker, also a candidate for the presidency, told Fox News. "We're chasing Burger King to Canada. Every day there's a new company reincorporating somewhere else."

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"This would be the biggest proposal of any candidate so far," Paul told Fox News. "It would be the largest tax reduction in our history. Let's have the debate in our country [about where] money is better spent. Is it better spent by people that earned it or [by] sending it to Washington."

Paul said his plan will also keep the mortgage and charitable deductions, while not allowing any wealthy corporations or people to get away with paying no taxes.

In an opinion piece he wrote for The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, Paul said President Barack Obama's middle-class economics plan's policies "have led to rising income inequality and negative income gains for families.

"Heres what I propose for the middle class: The Fair and Flat Tax eliminates payroll taxes, which are seized by the IRS from a workers paychecks before a family ever sees the money. This will boost the incentive for employers to hire more workers, and raise after-tax income by at least 15% over 10 years," Paul wrote.

In the column, Paul also said his plan "would blow up the tax code and start over."

He said he's consulted with the Heritage Foundations Stephen Moore, former presidential candidate Steve Forbes, who ran and lost on the flat-tax idea, and Reagan economist Arthur Laffer, to come up with a "21st-century tax code that would establish a 14.5% flat-rate tax applied equally to all personal income, including wages, salaries, dividends, capital gains, rents and interest.

"All deductions except for a mortgage and charities would be eliminated."

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Sen. Rand Paul to Unveil 14.5 Percent Flat Tax for All

Rand Pauls presidential campaign, by many recent accounts, is sputtering. The candidate, according to the Atlantics Molly Ball, is flailing. His campaign, reports National Journals Josh Kraushaar, has been called a disaster.

These judgments, even if true, are provisional. Pretty much any candidate in the Republican pack is one killer debate performance, one strong poll result, one especially good fundraising report away from a narrative of resurgence.

But there is little question that the initial, ineffable appeal of the Paul campaign has faded. In March 2013, when Paul filibustered against the governments possible use of Hellfire missiles to murder civilians in San Francisco cafes and Houston restaurants this seemed to make sense to some people at the time many conservatives were swept away. His voice, once lonely, wrote Noah Rothman, grew in stature. ... It was poetic. It was romantic.

Compare this with Pauls recent filibuster of the Patriot Act. The Senate gallery was staged with supporters wearing Stand With Rand T-shirts. Pauls online campaign store offered a filibuster starter pack for $30, including a spy blocker for your computers video camera and a shirt reading The NSA knows I bought this Rand Paul tshirt. Pauls Senate colleagues found themselves dragged into the middle of an infomercial. And many were not pleased.

Once it was Mr. Smith goes to Washington. Now it is Mr. Smith uses Senate procedure to conduct a fundraising campaign on a national security issue that he distorts to serve his political interests.

Sen. Rand Paul, (R-Ky.), who announced he's running for president in 2016, is known for his belief in limited government. Here his take on Obamacare, the Constitution and more, in his own words. (Julie Percha/The Washington Post)

The romance is gone. The bitterness and conspiratorial hints remain. Paul recently blamed the rise of the Islamic State on Republican hawks. Under pressure, Paul conceded, I could have stated it better. But this was a gaffe of excessive clarity. Pauls foreign policy libertarianism is founded on the belief that an aggressively fought war against terrorism actually produces terrorism that the United States has somehow earned the enmity it faces.

And Pauls accusation goes further. People here in [Washington] think Im making a huge mistake, he said on the Senate floor. Some of them I think secretly want there to be an attack on the United States so they can blame it on me.

Paul likes to present himself as a voice of reason and outreach. But he is prone to rhetorical recklessness. Which of Pauls rivals, in this case, would be secretly pleased about the killing of Americans if it helped justify a political argument? Any names? Paul, by his account, is facing not only opponents but monsters.

According to Paul, it is hawks and neocons who glory for war, who really think wars always the answer. Some, as weve seen, secretly want there to be an attack on the United States. Sen. John McCain wants 15 wars more. Paul has accused former vice president Dick Cheney of supporting the Iraq war in order to benefit his former employer, Halliburton. Pauls charges are often nasty, often ad hominem, often involve the questioning of motives. In democratic discourse, this type of argument is a conversation stopper. How can you find agreement with scheming warmongers?

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The romance with Rand Paul is gone - The Washington Post

Rand Paul Vs. The World

Rand Paul says the darndest things. Especially about privacy, government surveillance, ISIS and himself. Three recent examples from last week: filibustering Patriot Act reforms; saying that GOP hawks created ISIS by sending arms into the Gulf region; and accusing his foes of wanting another terrorist attack in the U.S. so they could blame the carnage on him. That last remark was such a piece of grandiose self-pity that no one wanted to respond. Why play into the Kentucky senators martyrdom shtick?

Paul first became a Republican sensation in 2013, when he used a filibuster to raise alarms about the CIAs drone program. This time around, Paul is a declared presidential candidate, and his filibuster this week against the NSAs bulk data collection program elicited within his party a scattering of wan support, but mostly criticism, much of it from rival GOP presidential contenders.

None of his moves this week shifted his poll numbers one way or the other.

Paul managed to procure some measure of backing from his fellow 2016-ers, with the strongest support coming from Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas, who has shed the nice-guy conservative approach that won him Iowa in 2008 for an edgier, to-the-right-of-everyone strategy now. As CNN reported:

Huckabee said that the original [Patriot Act] was "hastily passed" in the wake of 9/11 without extensive debate. Public opinion has shifted now, he said. "Fourteen years ago, we were worried about terrorists. Now we're worried about our government," Huckabee said, singling out controversies around the IRS and Justice Departments.

Elsewhere, Dr. Ben Carson put himself firmly in the probably camp on NSA bulk surveillance reform, saying, "We really have to protect the Constitution, the Fourth Amendment, and there are aspects of the Patriot Act, such as the massive meta-data collection, which I think probably are not necessary."

The best Pauls fellow firebrand Ted Cruz could muster was this: I would note he and I agree on a great many issues, although we dont agree entirely on this issue, but I want to take the opportunity to thank the senator from Kentucky for his passionate defense of liberty. His is a voice that this body needs to listen to.

But that was about it from Pauls colleagues in the nomination hunt. For the most part, by weeks end, just about everyone else in the GOP had, in one way or another, suggested that the good doctor was naive, or a media grandstander (as if they weren't!), or a soft-on-terrorism isolationist who was afraid to confront a global Islamist jihad.

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Trail To The Chief: Rand Paul vs. The World

If anyone ought to be well positioned in the current, fractured Republican field, its Rand Paul. The Kentucky senators libertarian stances make him stand out from the pack, and his supporters were supposed to give him a solid base that he could expand by appealing to more traditional Republicans.

But instead, Paul seems to be flailing, and fighting for space in the crowded GOP landscape. Hes tied for fourth place in the average of national polls, fifth in Iowa, third in New Hampshire. His fundraising isnt going wellhes even been frozen out by the top donor to his father, the former Texas congressman Ron Paul. Hes struggling to earn the backing of his fathers rank and file supporters, as well. And while Rand Pauls recent maneuvers in the Senate succeeded in derailing renewal of the Patriot Act, they also served to highlight the unpopularity of his national-security positions within his partyand the stunt got far less buzz than the 2013 filibuster that made him a hero to many conservatives.

Inside and around the campaign, there is a sense that things are not going as well as hoped for Paul, multiple sources told me. They are in a challenging spot right now, said one Republican operative with knowledge of the campaign. They are having a hard time reaching out to new constituencies while keeping the base happy. The problem, the operative said, is that Pauls flip-flopping and triangulation have damaged his reputation for ideological purity. Senator Paul appears, in the minds of Republicans, to have gone from a guy who was standing on principle, who wanted to do things, to a politician who wants to be something, the operative said.

A different GOP strategist put it more succinctly to National Journals Josh Kraushaar, calling the Paul campaign a disaster.

Why is Paul having such a hard time? Partly it is because the crowded field he thought would give him an advantage includes several conservative candidates appealing to a similar pool of votersfrom the firebrand Ted Cruz to social conservative Mike Huckabee to neurosurgeon Ben Carson. Partly it is the shifting landscape of key issues, which has put foreign policy front and center. (National security and terrorism recently became the No. 1 concern of GOP primary voters, and 57 percent of them want an approach that is more aggressive, not less, according to a recent Pew survey.) And partly it is a matter of flawed strategic assumptionsa campaign that believed it could build a coalition of different kinds of voters based on the candidates various facets is finding it may instead be a zero-sum game.

Just a few months ago, some were calling Paul the early frontrunner for the nomination. The many moderate and establishment-oriented candidates, Paul himself theorized, would split the partys more traditional voters, allowing Paul to consolidate conservatives. Paul was by far the most aggressive candidate in building a campaign infrastructure, constructing a 50-state network that was in place more than a year ago. Meanwhile, he courted traditional big-money donors, schmoozing confabs like Mitt Romneys Utah donor retreat as he sought to prove he was less of a loose cannonsome might say gadflythan his father. In a March 2014 national poll of Republican primary voters, he placed first with 16 percent of the vote.

Paul started early because he was hoping to lock in support while other potential candidates were still making up their minds. He paid his first visits to Iowa and New Hampshire in the spring of 2013. He vigorously courted social conservatives with a message that linked personal liberty to religious liberty and emphasized his opposition to abortion. In the 2012 Iowa caucuses, Ron Paul came in third, with 21 percent of the vote; he came in second in New Hampshire, with 23 percent. Rand Pauls advisers figured he would naturally appeal to those voters as the closest thing in the field to Ron Paul, and could quickly vault to the front by building on that base.

But polling averages now put Paul under 9 percent in Iowa and around 12 percent in New Hampshire. Paul gets 9 percent of the Republican primary vote nationally, on average, the same amount of support as Carson and behind Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, and Marco Rubio. Polls at this stage arent at all predictive of how the race will actually shake out, but they are a barometer of Republican activists current sentiment. What they show is that, despite Pauls early organizational efforts and his supposed claim on liberty-minded Republicans, the percentage of voters ready to commit to him is smalland rather than building it up, he may be watching it shrink.

Ron Pauls supporters, a finicky and purist bunch, have proved less transferable to Rand Paul than the campaign assumed. In Iowa, several prominent former Ron Paul supporters, including state Senator Jason Schultz, are backing Cruz. This week, the New York Times reported that Rand Paul was beginning to win over some formerly leery Ron Paul fansa strikingly late conversion of a group he thought he could take for granted. Many Ron Paul supporters have been alienated by Rand Pauls gestures to the establishment, particularly his partnership with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, whose reelection he endorsed and campaigned for last year. In blocking the reauthorization of the Patriot Act last week, Paul antagonized McConnell, but won points with libertarians for proving he could stand up to the leader.

Unlike Pauls 2013 filibuster against drones, which brought him wide acclaim and highlighted his political creativity, his speech on surveillance last week was largely viewed as a political stunt aimed at thrusting him into the spotlight and goosing his lagging fundraising. Thats perhaps inevitablePaul is a candidate now, as he wasnt the last timeand perhaps unfair, as he has a long track record on the issue. But it highlights how his image has changed, from that of a passion-driven truth-teller, like his father, to that of a politically minded triangulator. Confronted with the accusation, Paul displayed another unfortunate tendency by lashing out at his critics, saying that those who oppose him secretly want there to be an attack on the United States so they can blame it on me. (He later backed off and acknowledged that the statement was hyperbole.)

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Rand Paul's Struggling Presidential Campaign - The Atlantic