Rand Paul: Obama Acting Petulant and Childish by Refusing to Meet with Netanyahu
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Rand Paul: Obama Acting Petulant and Childish by Refusing to Meet with Netanyahu - Video
UNITED STATES - JANUARY 27: Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., speaks during the news conference to unveil the Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration Act (FAIR Act), legislation to 'protect the rights of property owners and restore the Fifth Amendment's role in civil forfeiture proceedings' on Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2015. (Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call) | Bill Clark via Getty Images
The following post first appeared on FactCheck.org.
Sen. Rand Paul falsely claimed that a tax credit program for low-income workers has a fraud rate of 25 percent and costs taxpayers $20 billion to $30 billion. Paul cited a report by the Government Accountability Office, but thats not what the report said.
The earned income tax credit program had an improper payment error rate of 24 percent in fiscal year 2013, according to the latest GAO report. The error rate includes fraud, but also represents mistakes made by taxpayers when filing tax forms and the IRS when processing payments. The GAO blamed the mistakes on the complexity of the tax law. The errors cost taxpayers $14.5 billion which is less than half of the high-end estimate provided by Paul.
Paul, a Kentucky Republican who is considering running for president, joined two other potential GOP presidential candidates at a Jan. 25 forum sponsored by the conservative Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce. Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas also attended.
The moderator, Jon Karl of ABC News, asked the senators if they agreed with Rep. Paul Ryans proposal to expand the earned income tax credit and pay for the expansion by eliminating other tax breaks. The EITC is a refundable tax credit, which means that low-income taxpayers who have no tax liability can receive a refund. Otherwise, the tax credit is used to reduce a taxpayers liability.
Paul said he opposes Ryans plan and criticized the EITC program for being rife with fraud.
Paul, Jan. 25: When you look at the earned income tax credit, it has about a 25 percent fraud rate. Were looking at $20 billion to $30 billion. And this is from estimates from the GAO [Government Accountability Office], from the government themselves.
Thats not what the GAO said.
Excerpt from:
Rand Paul Exaggerates Tax Credit Fraud
NEW YORK (CNNMoney)
Sen. Rand Paul re-introduced legislation this week that would require the Government Accountability Office to conduct a full audit of the central bank's monetary policy deliberations -- a proposal that has started gaining real traction in Washington the past few years.
The Kentucky Republican introduced the bill (originally spearheaded by Paul's father, libertarian firebrand and former Rep. Ron Paul of Texas) in 2013, but it didn't go anywhere in the Democratic-controlled Senate last Congress.
Now, with the new Republican majority in the upper chamber, proponents of "Audit the Fed" are hopeful that the bill will make new headway this year.
Related: Can Ted Cruz audit the Fed?
"The Fed's currently operates under a cloak of secrecy and it has gone on for too long," Paul said in a statement. "The American people have a right to know what the Federal Reserve is doing with our nation's money supply."
The House has previously approved the bill with bipartisan support, and Paul's fellow Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie already introduced a companion bill earlier this month.
So far, Paul's bill has 30 co-sponsors while Massie's has 103.
The Fed is already subject to regular audits by the GAO, but proponents of "Audit the Fed" bill want to get rid of current restrictions that shield the central bank's monetary policy deliberations from auditors.
Related: Fed stays 'patient' but rate hikes are coming
Read more here:
Senator Rand Paul goes after Fed...again
TIME Politics Congress U.S. Senator Rand Paul speaks during the Wall Street Journal's CEO Council meeting in Washington D.C. on Dec. 2, 2014. Kevin LamarqueReuters
The three Republicans senators potentially running for the White House in 2016 agree on at least one thing: The Federal Reserve should be audited.
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul re-introduced a bill with Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida on Wednesday to order the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office to review the Feds monetary policy decision making and increase congressional oversight.
The bill has a much greater chance of making it to the Senate floor under new Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is one of 30 co-sponsors according to Pauls office. Former Rep. Ron Paul, Rands father, pressed lawmakers for years to audit the Federal Reserve and similar bills have passed the Republican-controlled House in the past.
A complete and thorough audit of the Fed will finally allow the American people to know exactly how their money is being spent by Washington, said Paul in a statement. The Feds currently operates under a cloak of secrecy and it has gone on for too long. The American people have a right to know what the Federal Reserve is doing with our nations money supply. The time to act is now.
The bill is unlikely to be signed into law by President Obama. In December, Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen said that she would forcefully oppose such legislation as it would jeopardize the central banks independence with short-run political interference, according to the Hill.
More here:
Paul Gets Assist from 2016 Rivals on Audit the Fed Bill
(TNS)For many decades, the Supreme Courts 1905 decision in Lochner v. New York has ranked among the most universally despised rulings in the history of American law. In that long-repudiated case, the court struck down a maximum-hours law for bakers.
A week ago, Sen. Rand Paul a likely candidate for president, and among the most influential members of the Republican Party explicitly embraced Lochner, and proudly endorsed the whole idea of judicial activism. That tells us a lot about contemporary law and politics, and probably about the future of conservative thinking as well.
In its ruling inLochner, the court relied on the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, which bars states from deprivingpeople of life, liberty or property without due process of law. In the courts view, liberty includes freedom of contract. The court said that if states cannot offer a strong justification for intruding on that form of freedom, they have violated the Constitution.
Under this approach, a lot of modern legislation could run into constitutional trouble, including minimum-wage laws, rent-control laws, occupational-safety laws, even laws forbidding discrimination on the basis of race, sex and disability and Obamacare as well.
By the late 1930s, however, the Supreme Court repudiated its whole approach in the Lochner case. It embraced instead a version of Oliver Wendell Holmes dissent, which insisted that a constitution is not intended to embody a particular economic theory, and that the word liberty in the Fourteenth Amendment is perverted when it is held to prevent the natural outcome of a dominant opinion, unless it can be said that a rational and fair man necessarily would admit that the statute proposed would infringe fundamental principles as they have been understood by the traditions of our people and our law.
Ever since the 1930s, there has been widespread agreement that, at least in the economic sphere, Holmes was right and Lochner was wrong. But people have disagreed about exactly why.
In rejecting Lochner, many conservatives have called broadly for judicial restraint. In their view, federal judges should be reluctant to second-guess the judgments of the elected branches, whether the issue involves maximum-hour laws, the criminal justice system, voting rights, school prayer or abortion.
Other conservatives have emphasized that the Lochner Court was unfaithful to the text and original meaning of the Constitution. In their view, the due process clause doesnt give general protection to freedom of contract; it says, much more narrowly, that before states can take your property, your liberty or your life, they have to give you a hearing (due process).
But more recently, conservative constitutional thought has undergone a reversal, even a kind of revolution. The University of Chicagos Richard Epstein and Timothy Sandefur of the Pacific Legal Foundation have argued for a much more aggressive judicial role in protecting private property and freedom of contract. Sandefur himself believes that Lochner was right.
On the Supreme Court, that position has no support, and in Congress, it remains a fringe view. But among a younger generation, conservative judicial activism has unmistakable, and growing, appeal. The fringe seems to be moving toward the center.
See the article here:
Rand Pauls novel conservative judicial activism