Video: Rand Paul Defends Tea Party, Hammers Big Government

Guy Benson | April 15, 2011 1:51 PM

Kentucky's junior Senator offered a plain-spoken defense of the Tea Party and the principles of limited government in a floor speech last night. Let's try an experiment for a moment; close your eyes and listen to this speech as if you've never heard of Rand Paul or the Tea Party movement. From his common-sense arithmetic, to his assessment of our involvement in Libya, to his acknowledgment of bipartisan culpability in feeding the debt crisis, Paul's comments sound pretty darn straightforward and sensible. I have a hunch that these remarks would appeal to a broad swath of American voters, including many with no affiliation with, or affinity for, the Tea Party movement. Thoughts?

While we're on the subject of Senators and common sense, Jeff Sessions -- the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee -- has a modest proposal for President Obama: Since the White House has essentially tossed out the 2012 budget it introduced two months ago in favor of a nebulous new "vision," why not draw up...a new budget to codify and flesh out this new framework? If Obama is going to cynically and dishonestly savage Paul Ryan's concrete budget plan for political gain, the least he can do is offer a tangible alternative. How about it, Mr. President?

Oh, that's right. The president has already announced he's (again) delegating the hard work of governing to (another) bipartisan committee, this time led valiantly by The Vice President of the United Stazzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

UPDATE - You don't say: Well over half of the president's new proposed "savings" come from higher taxes, not the spending cuts he promised on Wednesday. Some people will gripe that this study was conducted by Goldman Sachs -- a big, evil Wall Street corporation that