Bowling Green, KY — Several media outlets criticized outspoken Republican Senator Rand Paul over the weekend after he mentioned buying two guns with his federal stimulus money. During the Saturday Fox News show “You Earned It,” Paul commented during a conversion with occasional guest host Rich Harry.
“We go back several years, Rand, and I gotta ask you, what are you going to do with your stimulus check,” said Mr. Harry, half-joking to the libertarian-leaning Kentucky Senator. “I mean, a lot of people want to know what you’re going to do with it.”
Since he criticized the actions back in March, Mr. Paul has been unusually silent about the federal bailout/stimulus spending. However, it was unclear if the three-time Senator would accept the $1200 payment until this past weekend.
“Well, I went out and purchased two Springfield XD9s, one for me and one for the wife,” said Mr. Paul without missing a beat. “I mean, why not take the money? Everyone else is.”
For decades conservative and libertarian-oriented members of Congress have fought to limit the government’s role in people’s lives. This strategy since the 1980s involved removing onerous regulations and often “starving the beast,” a legislative agenda that involved lowering taxes and spending at the same time with the hopes of crippling the federal government.
Until recently, this was the core platform of the Republican party before COVID-19. Now, the majority of the party has become, what one commenter observed, “hardcore socialists.”
“The part of Reagan seems much more like the part of FDR now,” said Professor James Badwater of the University of Chicago’s Badwater Institute for Public Policy and Waste Systems. “For decades, they’ve railed about the dangers and traps of FDR’s New Deal Keynesian economics. Now they’ve embraced Keynes.”
This radical change of the conservative heart has led many to believe that their entire plan was “just a bunch of bullshit for the rich,” noted one Herdon, Virginia Democrat.
“It’s like everything thing they believed in, they’ve abandoned,” said Herdon Democrat organizer Kathleen Jameson. “I mean, how are they going to go back to their old ways again? Are they going to say, ‘well, that stimulus stuff was fake, and we need to get back to screwing the poor people of this country?’ I don’t doubt it, but think of how stupid they’ll look.”
As for Rand Paul, he’s not backing, even after being challenged on national television.
“Look, it’s my money like it’s yours,” continued the Senator, his mood souring. “And what better way to use it than to express my second amendment rights?”
