Rand Paul’s Lexington Speech at Bar None – Part 2 – Transcript of Speech Portion of Event

No alcohol was present, but the Young Republicans of Frankfort came to Lexington to host Rand Paul at the Bar None.

Correction: A question arose, and the audiorecording of this event was reviewed. The transcript has now been corrected from “Al” Smith to “Adam” Smith. This site will correct any mistakes drawn to its attention promptly. Below is the complete transcription of Republican Kentucky U.S. Senate candidate Rand Paul’s speech this afternoon. No analysis or reporting is included at this point, in order to focus the initial effort on putting the raw language out there to be shared. The next portion after this will include the questions and answers, including the comparisons that were raised suggesting our current government leaders should be compared to Adolph Hitler.

Rand Paul’s Speech:

Thank you Jonathan. I met Jonathan a few months ago at a tea party over in Frankfort. The Tea Party Movement seems to be everywhere. In fact, the biggest crowds and meetings that I’ve been to in Kentucky have all been Tea Parties. I had to promise my family one thing when I went out on the road to campaign. I had to promise them that I would never sing. As you can tell, my voice is kind of raspy, so I’m not going to sing. But I do have the lyrics to a song I’d like to tell you. This is a song called Trees, by Rush.

There is unrest in the forest,
There is trouble with the trees,
For the maples want more sunlight
And the oaks ignore their pleas.

So the maples formed a union
And demanded equal rights.
“The oaks are just too greedy;
And are grabbing up all the light. (sic)
Now there’s no more oak oppression,
For they passed a noble law,
And the trees are all kept equal
By hatchet, axe, and saw.

This is what happens when you want equal outcomes. If we want everybody in here to make the same amount of money and we want everybody to have the same amount of ability, we have to handicap people. There’s a famous short story by Kurt Vonnegut called Harrison Bergeron. Those that were musically inclined had buzzing noises in their ears. They wanted to make everyone equal. We have solved that same sentiment in our country. People say they don’t want certain people to make more money than other people. We need a progressive income tax. We need to somehow equalize everybody so that everybody’s the same. The problem is that if you allow the heavy hand of government to come in and force equality on people, they have to do it with a hatchet, an axe, or a saw. It takes force. Forced egalitarianism is not what we want in our country. We want in our country the ability for the son of a school teacher like Bill Gates to become a multi-billionaire. There’s nothing wrong with wealth if you earn it honestly and you sell a product to people who buy it voluntarily.
That ability to be mobile within a society is what characterizes capitalism and freedom. Of course in the olden days in Europe where there was the landed gentry and the aristocracy endowed by birth not by ability or skill. So in our country we’ve always had that ability. But if you allow people to have self-interest and to strive for the best for them and their family what you do is you redistribute goods. Because if I want to become wealthy and I own Microsoft I can only do so by pleasing U.S. consumers. And so that’s what you want. You want to allow capitalism to work.
Recently we’ve given capitalism sort of a black eye. We said the reason behind this great financial panic last year is all because of greed. Well, what is greed? If it’s your money, it’s greed, if it’s mine, it’s just self-interest. It’s all a matter of perspective. Is self-interest a bad thing? No, self-interest is the invisible hand that Adam Smith talked about.
The invisible hand of self-interest drives all of us to make a profit, but in doing so we have to minimize inefficiencies in distributing our goods to others. This is what drives capitalism. I saw a gentleman here earlier and I made a point—when we defeated the Soviet Union in the Cold War, we didn’t defeat them with bullets, we defeated them because the engine of capitalism beat the engine of socialism. And it can work but we have to respect and understand and have belief in the system of capitalism. In our country we are in danger of losing some of the things we have had for so many years. I’m very concerned about our country. I run for office not because I need the accolades or I need a position. My family’s in Bowling Green, we’re very happy, I have a nice job. There’s no reason for me to go for self-advancement. I run for office because I’m concerned about the degree of the debt. The deficit this year will be 13 % of gross national product. Federal spending is at 28 % of gross national product. We are spending money at $53,000 per second. Things are out of control. And it can’t go on forever. People say our kids and our grandkids will pay for this debt. I think that’s true but I think the problem is even more than that. When you create this much money to pay for the debt, this course we did in 2008 we exploded the money supply. When this happened when this money filters into the economy you will have dramatically rising prices. I think we will see inflation worse than in 1979. I tell you people, we’re headed for inflation—we’re headed for 1979 on steroids. And those of you who remember 1979 we had 20 % interest rates and 20 % inflation. I think we’re headed in that direction because in the latter half of 2008, we doubled the monetary base. This money then when it filters into the economy can be multiplied another tenfold through fractional reserve systems. We are teetering at the point where I think there truly could be a crisis of faith in the currency. In 2008 people still were betting on the dollar still people do because the dollar while it’s a paper currency seems to have more strength than the other paper currencies. But we’re starting to see a wavering of faith in the dollar. We’re starting to see the Chinese buying gold. Every time gold dips down you see the Chinese buy more. I’ve been telling people that we’re the Chinese store for buying gold. Every time it dips down they buy. They’re buying less of our debt. The question is how long can we continue to operate at this level?
We are now the greatest debtor nation ever known to man. We used to be a great country that exported goods. Now our number one export is our debt. We owe over $800 billion to the Chinese, $700 billion to the Japanese, $100 billion to the Saudis, $100 billion to the Taiwanese. The list goes on and on. There are three ways you can pay for the incredible amount of spending we have. You can tax people. We’re already taxed to the hilt. Nobody wants any more taxes. You can borrow it from foreigners like we’re doing or you can print it. The last resort is printing it, and that’s what we’re going to have to do to pay for the debt. But as they print it there will be ramifications for the rest of us. I tell people that this message is something that I think can resonate beyond the Republican primary because many of the people who have been gravitating to the Democrat Party are working class and those on fixed income. And I think our message can resonate with them. Because if you have big government it leads to big deficits and that ultimately leads to inflation. And the rising prices at the pump and in the grocery store. Who’s hurt worst by those? People on fixed incomes and those on the lower part of the socio-economic ladder. So inflation hurts those people the worst, and our message needs to be that big government is not your friend. Big government and debt leads to inflation that makes it harder to climb the socio-economic ladder. And so we have to bring that message to people. I tell people this is the year of the outsider. If there ever was a year an outsider like myself, someone who’s not the choice of those who are the establishment, it’s this year. The Tea Party Movement has had rallies in Kentucky that are ten times as big as any GOP rallies. It shows me that there’s discontent. It shows me that there are people in Kentucky that don’t want to have the candidate hand-picked by somebody in Washington. They want to make up their own minds. And I think this is the year we can do it. We also have in our advantage we’ve raised a million dollars.
We raised a million dollars last quarter which was more than both of the Democrats and our Republican opponent. In doing so we can get our message out to the primary voter. We just did a mailing this week to most primary voters in the Republican primary. Change is going to allow us to win this election, and I think we very much can. As I’ve gone around the state, I’ve been to every region of the state so far. I’ve yet to meet one Republican voter who really backed the bailout. And yet half of our Republican leadership did. So I tell them, this is a primary. This is about your choice and your chance to choose new leadership, and I think it’s resonating. Even with all the regions I go to I don’t find anyone saying Oh you shouldn’t say that. People understand that we need to air this out. When you elect somebody, it’s not enough just to have an R next to their name. I just think that the literal parties are empty vessels unless we imbue them with values. Unless we believe in something it does no good just to have Republicans win over Democrats unless you believe in something.
And when we were in charge, we were in charge for 8 years. With the White House and both houses of Congress, and the deficit doubled. The debt doubled from five to ten trillion dollars. We doubled the size of the Department of Education. We used to believe—I’ve been involved ever since I was a kid at the Republican convention in 1976 when I was supporting Reagan. Reagan ran on a platform of getting rid of the Department of Education. George Bush has doubled the size of the Department of Education. So really, we as Republicans need to self-examine and ask do we believe in small government? Do we believe in balanced budgets? And if we do we have to elect some Republicans who also do and will hold to that work.
I also think there are some reform issues that will bring the independents, moderates, conservative Democrats to our side. I think people should be limited in their terms. I think two six-year terms in the Senate, and six two-year terms in the House should be plenty. The first bill I will introduce will be term limits. (first polite applause).
I think we need to refer back to what’s done in Kentucky. In Kentucky at the end of the day, by law, the budget has to balance. That’s what we need in Washington. We can’t trust them to do the right thing. We’ve been trusting them for a generation now and they will not do it. But if we have a law it will force them to do it. So I think we have to have a balanced budget amendment, or at the very least, a balanced budget rule that says Congress has to balance the budget each year. I think that would go a long way towards reform.
I’ve made a pledge to people that if I’m elected I will not vote for any budget that is not balanced, Republican or Democrat. (Smattering of applause) People say, oh, that’s not practical. You will not be able to win the votes. Maybe not, initially. But then maybe we the Republican Party will stand for something again. We can regain our believability as the party of fiscally conservative government. But we have to vote that way, we have to introduce balanced budgets whether we win or lose. I’ve also told people that in every appropriations bill, I will introduce an amendment reducing that bill by whatever percent it takes to balance the budget. So if we’re 20 % over budget I’ll propose amending every spending bill to reduce the spending by 20 %. Once again, people will say, oh that’s not practical. We may not win at first, but maybe if we can get that message out to the public, we can begin to be the party of fiscal conservatism. I will do my best to fulfill what I promised you here today. I don’t need this job. I do it because I’m worried about our country. And I hope you’ll stand with me and help me in this fight thank you very much for having me.

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