Rand: Dems 'Unwilling to Negotiate'

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) told Savannah Guthrie on Meet The Press that the GOP has been sending Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) numerous Continuing Resolutions (CR) to help fund the government. According to him, Reid has said no to every single one of them, though Paul argues it’s a better way to fund the government.

These are clean C.R.’s, meaning that there’s no strings attached. We’ve been passing N.I.H. funding, veterans funding. And here’s the thing that people don’t realize. That’s historically the way it’s always been. You pass small appropriation bills so you can look at them individually.

It’s actually a much better way to run government, because right now, you’re sticking everything into one bill and that’s why the leverage of shutting the government down occurs. But if you did things appropriately and you passed appropriation bills one at a time, no one would be able to shut down government ever. So really if Harry Reid has done his job, we wouldn’t be in this position at all.

Guthrie attempted to force Paul to admit the GOP wanted to shut down the government or should be blamed for it. Paul quickly reminded Guthrie it is President Obama’s fault for the shutdown because he will not negotiate.

Well, I think that when you look at legislation, when you say the president wants 100% of ObamaCare or he will shut down the government, that’s exactly what’s happened. If he doesn’t get 100% of his way, his way or the highway, then they won’t do any spending bills that don’t include everything that he wants. That’s him unwilling to negotiate. That’s him being unwilling to compromise.

We’ve been offering compromise after compromise. But you hear from the president and his men and his women, “No negotiation.” His way or the highway. They’re the ones who are unwilling to compromise on any facet of ObamaCare. And I think that intransigence has led to the shutdown of the government.

At the end of the interview, Guthrie asked Paul if the GOP would be responsible if the country defaulted on its debt, but Paul reminds Guthrie it is virtually impossible to default. 

I think it’s irresponsible of the president and his men to even talk about default. There’s no reason for us to default.  We bring in $250 billion in taxes every month.  Our interest payment is $20 billion. Tell me why we would ever default. We have legislation called the Full Faith and Credit Act, and it tells the president, “You must pay the interest on the debt.”

So this is a game. This is kind of like closing the World War II Memorial. They all get out on TV and they say, “Oh, we’re going to default.” They’re the ones scaring the marketplace.  We shouldn’t scare the marketplace.  We should never default. There’s no reason to default.