Dr. Rand Paul: ‘President Trump Has Had a Year of Accomplishments’

WASHINGTON, D.C. – In his latest op-ed for TIME, U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) looked back on President Trump’s achievements during his first year in office.

“I do not always align with President Trump — and I have voiced my opposition at times, including voting against some of his nominees and initiatives. But I will tell you, he has had some great success through his first year, and I look forward to what 2018 will bring,” Dr. Paul stated in the piece.

It has been said that Ronald Reagan observed that “the person who agrees with you 80% of the time is a friend and an ally — not a 20% traitor.” I try to take this approach as well, and though I have disagreements with GOP leaders in the White House and Congress, I try to focus on the areas of agreement whenever possible.

I do not always align with President Trump — and I have voiced my opposition at times, including voting against some of his nominees and initiatives. But I will tell you, he has had some great success through his first year, and I look forward to what 2018 will bring. Let us review the major accomplishments of the GOP controlling the White House and Congress.

For starters, the Trump Administration has assembled one of the most conservative and effective cabinets in decades. From my friend and Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, to Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, this is a team grounded in conservative principles and ideals.

Why is this important? So much of government in recent years has consisted of executive agency overreach and overregulation. But the Cabinet is pushing back and freeing our economy and citizens from this burden. I applaud their first year’s efforts.

Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch is another huge bright spot — a great pick by President Trump, and a team effort to ensure his confirmation and place on the court. This is combined with a record pace and similar success in appointing and confirming lower court judges. This matters. Our country’s course will be set for the better, and our Constitution more strongly guarded, if his future nominations are in the mold of his first.

On the legislative front, President Trump kept his promise to make America more energy independent, which has revived the coal industry in Kentucky and beyond. The War on Coal has ended. We will soon be drilling offshore and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Combine all this with the announcement that the U.S. will withdraw from the Paris Agreement, and this administration has clearly charted a new course for America’s energy supply and energy workers.

Working together, we have also passed a tax cut that will create jobs, killed the Obamacare mandate and pushed for expansion of Association Health Plans to give cheaper, better healthcare to millions of Americans.

Finally, during my time in the U.S. Senate, I have called for foreign aid to be cut to those who burn the American flag and chant “Death to America.” The out-of-touch politicians in Washington just laughed, and no president of either party supported cutting aid. President Trump has changed that, and he cut aid to Pakistan for a frustrating lack of cooperation in combating terror. I look forward to further cuts and welcome this prioritization on the needs of our own nation as we decide policy. I am also encouraged to have the President’s support for redirecting savings to fixing crumbling infrastructure here at home. We should be repairing roads and bridges in towns such as Louisville, not Karachi.

Our economy is beginning to move again, and the reaction to the tax cuts has been amazing. Companies across the spectrum have given raises and bonuses, increased investments and largely done what we expected — turn the tax cut into an engine for growth. And this is just year one.

I look forward to working for more freedom, greater economic growth and an America First policy as we move into year two.

After today's self-promoted, and self-promotional "speech," soon-to-be former Sen. Flake has earned the title of "The Pretender."

Naturally, like his fellow Arizonian, his popularity with Progressives likely will grow since his strong condemnation of the 62+ million fellow citizens who supported, and continue to support, President Trump's efforts to set back Progressive re-interpretation and rejection of what Jackson, in his 1832 Proclamation Regarding Nullification, called the U. S. Constitution--"the object of our reverence, the bond of our Union, our defense in danger, the source of our prosperity in peace." See below:

"Were we mistaken, my countrymen, in attaching this importance to the Constitution of our country? Was our devotion paid to the wretched, inefficient, clumsy contrivance, which this new doctrine would make it? Did we pledge ourselves to the support of an airy nothing-a bubble that must be blown away by the first breath of disaffection? Was this self-destroying, visionary theory the work of the profound statesmen, the exalted patriots, to whom the task of constitutional reform was intrusted? Did the name of Washington sanction, did the States deliberately ratify, such an anomaly in the history of fundamental legislation? No. We were not mistaken. The letter of this great instrument is free from this radical fault; its language directly contradicts the imputation, its spirit, its evident intent, contradicts it. No, we did not err. Our Constitution does not contain the absurdity of giving power to make laws, and another power to resist them. The sages, whose memory will always be reverenced, have given us a practical, and, as they hoped, a permanent constitutional compact. The Father of his Country did not affix his revered name to so palpable an absurdity. Nor did the States, when they severally ratified it, do so under the impression that a veto on the laws of the United States was reserved to them, or that they could exercise it by application. Search the debates in all their conventions-examine the speeches of the most zealous opposers of federal authority-look at the amendments that were proposed. They are all silent--not a syllable uttered, not a vote given, not a motion made, to correct the explicit supremacy given to the laws of the Union over those of the States, or to show that implication, as is now contended, could defeat it. No, we have not erred! The Constitution is still the object of our reverence, the bond of our Union, our defense in danger, the source of our prosperity in peace. It shall descend, as we have received it, uncorrupted by sophistical construction to our posterity; and the sacrifices of local interest, of State prejudices, of personal animosities, that were made to bring it into existence, will again be patriotically offered for its support." - Andrew Jackson - Proclamation Regarding Nullification, December 10, 1832

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