How to cut $500 billion from the Federal budget.

Last night, the best response to the president’s State of the Union address came not from Reps. Paul Ryan or Michelle Bachmann, but from freshman Senator Rand Paul. Earlier in the day, he released a plan to cut the Federal budget by close to $500 billion.

Paul’s budget cuts more than five times as much as House Republican leaders have advocated and faces little chance of winning support, even from within his own party.

…His plan would cut in half funding for the Department of Commerce and nearly eliminate the Department of Education. It would eliminate the Department of Energy, which oversees environment regulation and enforcement.

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The budget would cut funding for the federal court system and the Agriculture Department by nearly one-third. The Pentagon would see a roughly 6% cut, and the Food and Drug Administration a 62% cut.

“By removing programs that are beyond the constitutional role of the federal government, such as education and housing, we are cutting nearly 40% of our projected deficit and removing the big-government bureaucrats who stand in the way of efficiency in our federal government,” Paul said in a statement.

If you have a five-minute coffee break coming up, here’s the video of his rebuttal, along with a brief description of his proposed cuts:

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  • Brian Saint-Paul

    Brian Saint-Paul was the editor and publisher of Crisis Magazine. He has a BA in Philosophy and an MA in Religious Studies from the Catholic University of America, in Washington. D.C. In addition to various positions in journalism and publishing, he has served as the associate director of a health research institute, a missionary, and a private school teacher. He lives with his wife in a historic Baltimore neighborhood, where he obsesses over Late Antiquity.

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