Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), a 2016 GOP presidential candidate, tells Breitbart News that the replacement for departing House Speaker John Boehner must be someone who has served less than three terms in the House. That means that person would have been elected in the past six years.
“I would suggest someone who’s been elected less than three times,” Paul said when asked who should replace Boehner.
I think really that we need some new blood in leadership and that would go a long way towards shaking things up. If you just go to the next person in line—which is likely to happen—then it’s just more of the same. People who stick around long enough to rise to that level are I think not strong enough to make the change that’s needed to take the fight to the president.
That requirement would exclude House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy—the likely successor to Boehner—but Paul wouldn’t say specifically he doesn’t want McCarthy to be the next Speaker of the House.
“I’m not saying anything against any individual—I would just say that picking somebody who has been there not more than three terms would bring in some new blood,” Paul said when asked if that means McCarthy shouldn’t get the job.
McCarthy was first elected to Congress in the 2006 elections and has quickly rose up the ranks into leadership. He was Majority Whip before Majority Leader Eric Cantor lost his re-election in a primary to now Rep. Dave Brat (R-VA)—another historic development almost as big as Boehner surrendering his post.
Paul said the lesson from Boehner’s departure as Speaker, and from Cantor’s ouster—both of which establishment Republicans haven’t seemed to learn from yet—is that Americans want Republicans in Congress to fight harder against an out of control executive.
“I think voters expect more than what’s happening in Washington,” Paul said.
We took over the House a few years ago, took over the Senate now, and people want us to do something. Part of the frustration is that the power of the purse needs to be exercised. It is our obligation and duty to not spend so much money and put controls on the spending to try to regulate the president’s spending of the money and I think frankly the voters are frustrated because we’re not doing that. I hope this is the beginning of getting the message from the voters that we need to do a better job controlling spending.
When asked if he thinks this development is a repudiation of the establishment—and an affirmation of conservatism—Paul said he did.
“Yeah, this is what I’ve been saying along,” Paul said.
To vote for any Continuing Resolution is to vote to continue the borrowing and spending and debt. That’s why here last week, I was one of the few to vote against the Continuing Resolution because it continues to add debt. The current Continuing Resolution right now, if you look at the numbers in it, it adds $400 million of debt over the next year. So it’s just a real failure — it’s a crummy way to run government. In fact, I’ve said I won’t vote for any Continuing Resolution.
The only way I’ll vote for any spending bill is if we do all of the appropriations bills. Since Planned Parenthood has been so offensive, I would separate it out as its own funding bill or at least have it in an appropriations bill where it’s not included. This is where I think people get things backwards: Many in leadership in Washington will say we don’t have 60 votes in the Senate to defund Planned Parenthood.
It should be the opposite—if the money expires, it should require 60 votes to reinstitute it. We should hold firm on that—and in fact I think we should add thousands of instructions on how we want money spent. That means not supplying money for a host of things, Obamacare, regulations, you name it. There’s hundreds and hundreds of policies and objectives—we just shouldn’t fund them.
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