Rand Paul cuts check to Treasury Department

[C4nuck]

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com...ry-department/

(CNN) - Republican Sen. Rand Paul returned half a million dollars from his office budget to the Treasury Department on Thursday, offering a relatively small chunk of cash to help pay off the massive federal debt, which totals more than $15 trillion.

Unveiling a check made out to "The U.S. Taxpayer" at an event in Louisville, the Kentucky senator said he hopes other members of Congress would follow his cost-cutting measures.

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"If every senator did the same and every congressman did the same, it would be about $130 million. And we've got to start somewhere," Paul said.

The $500,000 contribution amounted to about 16% of the freshman senator's $3 million annual budget.

Not sure if this is the right forum for this or not, my apologies if it isn't. Some will say it's a "political move" so I guess it applies to this section's description.

Spin away!

[Simplicio]

So Paul's solution to the deficit is to have a system where workers follow his example and send in a certain proportion of their pay-checks to the federal gov't each year in order to cover federal spending?

I think thats already a thing.

[Giles]

Originally Posted by Simplicio

I think thats already a thing.

Yes, but he wants to make it voluntary.

[Marley23]

Hooray for token gestures! We don't have nearly enough of those in politics.

[Alley Dweller]

This is not money coming out of his paycheck or his personal account.
This is his office budget.
The so-called check is one of those symbolic five-foot long checks and not a real check that can be cashed at a bank. (If you look at the picture, there is no account or routing number at the bottom and no bank name on the check.)

Reading between the lines, what he did was spend $500,000 less than the allowed maximum on his office expenses and then called a news conference and dramatized it with a fake check. (I don't actually know if there is some formal process to "return" unspent office expenses or if just simply not spending the money is sufficient.)

I don't mean to imply that reducing his office expenses is not admirable, but it isn't coming out of his pocket.

[Onomatopoeia]

Is Rand Paul running for something I don't know about? Seems like this thread belongs in either GD or MPSIMS.

[redtail23]

So is Warren Buffet going to match it?

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by Onomatopoeia

Is Rand Paul running for something I don't know about?

POTUS in some future cycle, or so he might delude himself.

[Kolak of Twilo]

Originally Posted by Onomatopoeia

Is Rand Paul running for something I don't know about?

You gotta admit he would be an (ahem) interesting choice for Romney as Veep.

[Little Nemo]

Why limit this to just members of Congress? I'm willing to do my part. If the federal government gives me three million dollars, I'll give five hundred thousand of it back to help the deficit.

[Max the Immortal]

Libertarian proves that government agencies can be run efficiently.

Film at 11.

[Ravenman]

Originally Posted by C4nuck

Not sure if this is the right forum for this or not, my apologies if it isn't. Some will say it's a "political move" so I guess it applies to this section's description.

Spin away!

Good for him. He cut 16% of his office's budget. There's nothing wrong with that.

Rand Paul has also proposed cutting the budget for food stamps and child nutrition programs by 26%, NASA by 30%, the National Park Service by 34%, the Transportation Security Administration by 35%, and the Department of Education's budget by 100%.

Let's see him match those numbers.

[Simplicio]

Originally Posted by Ravenman

Good for him. He cut 16% of his office's budget. There's nothing wrong with that.

I dunno. Joking aside, I think we'd be better off if Congresscritters relied more on in house staff to do research and develop policy and less on lobbyists and outside groups. As Rand Paul demonstrates, his office budget isn't a meaningful portion of the federal budget, and I'd happily support double or tripling it if it made for better policy coming out of the Senate.

[42fish]

At the risk of asking the obvious: If Rand Paul believes this is such a great idea, is there a reason that he isn't introducing a bill to cut the annual office budgets for House & Senate members from $3 million to $2.5 million?

[Grumman]

Originally Posted by 42fish

At the risk of asking the obvious: If Rand Paul believes this is such a great idea, is there a reason that he isn't introducing a bill to cut the annual office budgets for House & Senate members from $3 million to $2.5 million?

Because it could not succeed without the support of those same House & Senate members? He can't even get them to agree that the war in Iraq has ended, how's he going to get them to cut their own budgets?

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Originally Posted by Simplicio

I dunno. Joking aside, I think we'd be better off if Congresscritters relied more on in house staff to do research and develop policy and less on lobbyists and outside groups. As Rand Paul demonstrates, his office budget isn't a meaningful portion of the federal budget, and I'd happily support double or tripling it if it made for better policy coming out of the Senate.

It'd be interesting to see how much of it is spent on getting the work done, and how much is spent on getting it done in style. I'd be all about cutting back on the latter.

[Jackmannii]

Since this is the Elections forum -

Has daddy Ron Paul (who actually is running for something or other) announced a similar or greater cut in his own office budget? And if not, why bring up what Rand did?

[Simplicio]

Originally Posted by Left Hand of Dorkness

It'd be interesting to see how much of it is spent on getting the work done, and how much is spent on getting it done in style. I'd be all about cutting back on the latter.

I've been in Senate offices, given the scale of the job, they're not particularly stylish.

Congress justifiably gets a bad rap, but the idea that people go to Congress to live like kings on the publics money is pretty inaccurate. Its actually a pretty crappy job, you have to spend a lot of time shuffling back and forth between DC and your home district, you have to spend a lot of time away from your family, you spend a lot of your time either in very boring committee meetings that are largely for show or begging people for campaign money and your stuck trying to get things done in a dysfunctional institution.

There are some nice perks as well, but most Congress folks are well connected enough before they run that they would probably do better perk and salary wise if they just joined lawfirms or financial companies.

So again, I think this kind of populist "all Congressmen are jerks except me, lets defund Senate offices" is damaging. Like most things, Congress isn't going to run better with less money.

[What the .... ?!?!]

Originally Posted by C4nuck

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com...ry-department/



Not sure if this is the right forum for this or not, my apologies if it isn't. Some will say it's a "political move" so I guess it applies to this section's description.

Spin away!

CNN started the ball rolling (spinning?) ...... "relatively small chunk". If one of their favored pols had done it we'd be reading about a" principaled gesture" .

[Simplicio]

Originally Posted by What the .... ?!?!

CNN started the ball rolling (spinning?) ...... "relatively small chunk". If one of their favored pols had done it we'd be reading about a" principaled gesture" .

How would you have characterized paying .00000035% towards a debt? I think they have to put something to give a sense of the size of the payment vs the size of what its going to pay for. Given the circumstances, I'd say "relatively small chunk" is pretty generous.

[What the .... ?!?!]

Originally Posted by Simplicio

How would you have characterized paying .00000035% towards a debt? I think they have to put something to give a sense of the size of the payment vs the size of what its going to pay for. Given the circumstances, I'd say "relatively small chunk" is pretty generous.

Maybe characterize it as his not using 16 % of his budget.... oh I see that they did,......... down a few paragraphs. I guess that's why they call it spin.

[Simplicio]

Originally Posted by What the .... ?!?!

Maybe characterize it as his not using 16 % of his budget.... oh I see that they did,......... down a few paragraphs. I guess that's why they call it spin.

It was 16% of his office budget, not 16% of the national debt. I asked how you would characterize "something to give a sense of the size of the payment vs the size of what its going to pay for." The 16% number doesn't do that.

Of course, they could give the .0000003% number, but "relatively small chunk" makes Paul look better then actually saying how small a chunk it is, so if its spin, then its pro-Paul spin.

[What the .... ?!?!]

Originally Posted by Simplicio

It was 16% of his office budget, not 16% of the national debt. I asked how you would characterize "something to give a sense of the size of the payment vs the size of what its going to pay for." The 16% number doesn't do that.

Of course, they could give the .0000003% number, but "relatively small chunk" makes Paul look better then actually saying how small a chunk it is, so if its spin, then its pro-Paul spin.

That may have been how you wanted me to respond but that is not exactly what you asked.

[elucidator]

He completely misses the point. Question isn't whether or not the government spends money, its about how they spend it, how effectively. If you go over budget by ten percent but double your effectiveness at reaching stated goals, you're doing a bang-up job, minor sins forgiven. If you save 16% of your budget, and brag on it, then you must offer some proof you did the same job as effectively on less money. Then you got something!

[Ravenman]

Originally Posted by elucidator

He completely misses the point. Question isn't whether or not the government spends money, its about how they spend it, how effectively. If you go over budget by ten percent but double your effectiveness at reaching stated goals, you're doing a bang-up job, minor sins forgiven. If you save 16% of your budget, and brag on it, then you must offer some proof you did the same job as effectively on less money. Then you got something!

Which is an interesting point, because Senator Paul seems to be building a record of being the voice off in the woods that nobody seems to be listening to at the moment. I looked up his legislative record, and out of the approximately 100 bills and amendments he has authored, only one of them has passed the Senate. Now, we shouldn't judge a freshman's record too harshly, but he has received votes on a fair number of his proposals, too. He's had a few near-party line votes, but several more really lopsided votes against him. His budget proposal garnered a vote of 7 to 90, his move to cut foreign aid lost 20-78, his effort to cut highway funds lost 14-84, plus a couple others that were a little less embarrassing.

That being a gratuitous shot against the senator that has nothing to do with his office budget, again he ought to be commended for returning the money he didn't need. Lots of government offices sweep up year-end cash for things like upgrading computers and Blackberries (hey, use it or lose it!) and the idea of returning funds to the Treasury shouldn't have the stigma that it frequently does. Very often, returning unspent funds is seen as a black mark against an agency, as in, "Man, your budget must be screwed up if you spent so much less than you asked for... next year, you're going to REALLY take it in the pocketbook!!"