Free Republic

Ramesh and Reason’s Nick Gillespie have been going back and forth over Rand Paul’s claim (from a number of years ago) that Jimmy Carter was a more fiscally conservative president than Ronald Reagan. Mother Jones collected a series of appearances over the years in which the Kentuckian argues that Reagan’s budget performance, compared with Carter’s, is evidence Republicans don’t really mean it when they claim the mantle of fiscal conservatism. Gillespie argues that Reagan’s deficits means he wasn’t a fiscal conservative, while Ramesh argues (and Nick seems to agree to some extent) that probably a better measure is rate of increases in spending...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) admitted Friday it’s “difficult to turn the clock back” on ObamaCare, but proposed making the law voluntary as a possible fix for consumers. “I think it’s going to be difficult to turn the clock back. People get assumed and accustomed to receiving things, particularly things that they get for free,” he told a crowd of students at Harvard’s Institute of Politics on Friday. Paul’s comments echo those of other Republicans who have admitted it will be difficult to fully repeal the law after some of its more popular provisions took effect. The potential 2016 presidential candidate...

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) appears to be a double-minded man on abortion.  How he can last week be the primary sponsor for a Life at Conception bill and then the following week tell CNN in an interview that there are “thousands of exceptions” is beyond me.  The Hill reports: Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Tuesday he’s open to “thousands of exceptions” to a ban on abortion.Paul has said he believes life begins at conception, but in an interview with CNN the Republican emphasized he is also a physician who treats each case individually.“What I would say is that there are...

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., told ABC News he believes the Supreme Court ruling on  the Defense of Marriage Act  was appropriate,  and that the issue should be left to the states. He praised Justice Anthony Kennedy for avoiding “a cultural war.”“As a country we can agree to disagree,” Paul said today, stopping for a moment to talk as he walked through the Capitol. “As a Republican Party, that’s kind of where we are as well. The party is going to have to agree to disagree on some of these issues.”The comments from Paul, a likely GOP presidential candidate in 2016,...

"You've got a President with big deficits, you've got an economy in the doldrums, you've got major corporate scandals, you've got a President talking about taking the country to war, which is never popular, and still you couldn't beat him." -- Charles Gibson to Tom Daschle on Wednesday's Good Morning America. Network reporters politely -- albeit not cheerfully -- acknowledged the Republican near-sweep that ended Tom Daschle's days in charge of the U.S. Senate, and they credited vigorous campaigning by the President for the GOP's success. But some journalists actually suggested that the voters' message yesterday was that both parties...