Congressman Paul, Pete from Rochester Hills, Michigan wants to ask you this. If you were president, would you work to phase out the IRS? (Laughter.)
REP. PAUL: Immediately. (Laughter.)
MR. VANDEHEI: That's what they call a softball.
REP. PAUL: And you can only do that if you change our ideas about what the role of government ought to be. If you think the government has to take care of us from cradle to grave, and if you think our government should police the world and spend hundreds of billions of dollars on a foreign policy that we cannot manage, you can't get rid of the IRS. But if you want to lower taxes, and if you want the government to quit printing the money to come up with shortfall and cause all the inflation, you have to change policy.
(Question on what tax the candidates would get rid of)
REP. PAUL: Well, in my first week, I already got rid of the income tax. In my second week -- (laughter) -- I would get rid of the inflation tax, the tax that nobody talks about. We live way beyond our means with a foreign policy we can't afford and an entitlement system that we have encouraged. We print money for it, the value of the money goes down, and poor people pay higher prices. That is a tax. It's the transfer of wealth from the poor and the middle class to Wall Street. Wall Street's doing quite well, but the inflation tax is eating away at the middle class of this country. We need to get rid of the inflation tax with sound money.
(Question on attacking Iran)
I believe that when we overdo our military aggressiveness, what it does it actually weakens our national defense. I mean, we stood up to the Soviets. They had 40,000 nuclear weapons. Now we're fretting day in and day -- night about third-world countries that have no army, navy or air force, and we're getting ready to go to war.
(Question on having Bill Clinton back in the White House)
REP. PAUL: I am known for sticking to principle and not flip- flopping. I voted to impeach him. So (why do we want him?) in the White House? (Laughter.)