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U.S. Sen. Rand Paul said Friday that he is leaning toward a run for president and will likely make an announcement in his home state of Kentucky sometime in March or April.

"Anything that I do, you know I'm from Kentucky, will be in Kentucky," Paul told reporters following a speech in Louisville on Friday.

Hours later, he was in Alabama testing his pitch that the GOP's hopes depend on nominating "a different kind of Republican."

In a 30-minute speech at an Alabama Republican Party gala, Paul mixed conservative orthodoxy with positions and proposals that aren't typical themes of GOP gatherings.

"Your government has gotten so out of control that often we aren't in charge," he said. "The executive branch has become this monster with tentacles that reach into every aspect of your lives, and no one can stop it."

He called for steep cuts in taxes and spending, sidestepping details. He celebrated his role in a partial government shutdown in October 2013. "In Washington, everybody was clamoring, everybody was worrying," the senator said. "I went back home to Kentucky, and you know what they said? 'Why the hell did you open it back up?'"

Paul alluded to his repeated calls for sentencing reforms, though he didn't go into details, and told the overwhelmingly white audience that Republicans must reach more non-white voters if they want to reclaim the White House in 2016.

He also worked in blistering critiques of President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, a potential 2016 Democratic nominee to succeed Obama.

Paul seeks to distinguish himself from a crowded Republican field with a delicate balancing act. He wants to maintain the loyal following that his father, former Rep. Ron Paul, enjoyed from libertarian-leaning Republicans in his presidential bids. But the younger Paul also wants to attract traditional Republicans, including cultural conservatives and business-minded conservatives who were wary of his father.

Then there's his push to expand the GOP's reach.

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Rand Paul: Presidential Announcement Likely in March ...

Rand Paul Calls Jeb Bush a Hypocrite About Marijuana
Rand Paul calls Jeb Bush a hypocrite on marijuana http://www.cbsnews.com/news/jeb-bush-is-a-hypocrite-on-marijuana-rand-paul-says/ On the Bonus Show: China...

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Rand Paul Calls Jeb Bush a Hypocrite About Marijuana - Video

Rachel Maddow 14 02 2015 Rand Paul seeks bet hedging ballot loopho YouTube

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Rachel Maddow 14 02 2015 Rand Paul seeks bet hedging ballot loopho YouTube - 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 made several misleading statements about the National Institutes of Health and some of the research that it funds.

Paul spoke at the American Spectator Annual Gala in Washington (at the 10:03 mark), and commented on how he has tried to point out potential areas where government spending could be reduced.

Paul, Feb. 11: Remember when we were talking about Ebola last year? Everybody was going crazy about Ebola, and theyre like, oh Republicans didnt spend enough at the NIH. And they didnt spend enough on infectious disease. Turns out, the budget had been going up for years and years at NIH, the budget had been going up for infectious disease. You know how much they spent on Ebola? One-40th of the budget was being spent on Ebola. But you know what we did discover? They spent a million dollars trying to determine whether male fruit flies like younger female fruit flies. I think we could have polled the audience and saved a million bucks.

Paul is wrong about the NIH budget increasing for years and years, even when using figures unadjusted for inflation. The budget was lower in raw dollars in 2014 and 2015 ($30.1 and $30.3 billion, respectively) than it was in 2010, when it reached a high of $31.2 billion. A spokesman from Pauls office sent us the unadjusted dollar amounts to explain the senators claim.

NIH, which is the primary funding source for basic science research in the United States, did see its budget increase dramatically from the mid-1990s, when it stood around $11 billion, through 2003, when it hit $27.2 billion. Since then, the budget has risen in small amounts some years in unadjusted dollars, and declined slightly in other years.

When inflation is taken into account, no increase in funding is evident in the last decade. The $27.2 billion in 2003 is equivalent to almost $35 billion in 2014 dollars, when the NIH budget was just over $30 billion. In other words, the NIH budget has actually decreased by almost $5 billion over the last decade in inflation-adjusted dollars.

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Rand Paul Misleads With Statements On NIH, Fruit Flies

Sen. Rand Paul fired back at a POLITICO article published earlier this week about his push to audit the Federal Reserve as mentioned in an interview with Glenn Beck on his radio program Thursday.

The Kentucky Republican and would-be presidential contender addressed an assertion from former Fed Chairman Donald Kohn that there is essentially no credit risk on the Federal Reserves balance sheet right now and that no institution in the U.S. is subject to more oversight.

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When they say theres no credit risk, they created four-and-a-half trillion dollars to buy these bad mortgages. So is there no risk in creating it? Paul asked in response, according to a transcript of the interview.

Paul continued: But then theres a whole question of favoritism. Is there any conflict of interest? Are any of these assets, so-called assets, which are sometimes bad car loans, bad home loans, are any of these assets owned by friends of theirs?

I mean, Bear Stearns is bailed out, Lehman Brothers isnt, he said. Does that have anything to do with who runs the bank or who owned the banks?

When asked about critics suggestions that hes using the issue to boost his profile among libertarian-minded Republicans, Paul was dismissive.

Well, that sounds like the people who call us flyover America. They discount any knowledge. But they also discount any true belief and worry about our country, he said. I think the one sincere thing that came out of the tea party movement and that still exists in the country is that there are millions of us that are worried about the future of the country. Were worried about the enormous death debt were incurring. Were worried about the ramifications of the Federal Reserve simply creating money to pay for that debt.

Paul told Beck that hes had enough of it.

You know, for about the last two decades, theres been a revolving door between the Fed, the Treasury, and Wall Street again, Paul said. Im tired of bailing out these big banks when they make bad decisions.

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Rand Paul vents to Glenn Beck about Fed criticism