Rand Paul's Quickly Following Through On His Campaign Promises.

Paul following through on his promises

A lot of politicians tell people what they want to hear, get elected, head to our nation’s capital and don’t follow through on those promises, but newly elected U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., doesn’t fit that mold.

During the campaign, he often talked about balancing the federal budget, which is in dire need of being done, and Paul is following through with that pledge.

Next month, Paul will appear before the Kentucky Senate to urge endorsement a resolution calling for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would require a balanced federal budget.

He has the backing of Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, who will be sponsoring the legislation.

The Constitution requires Congress to call a convention to consider proposing an amendment if two-thirds of the state legislatures ask for one.

Currently, about 20 state legislatures are considering similar balanced-budget resolutions.

Any amendment proposed by constitutional convention would then have to be ratified by the legislatures in three-fourths of the states.

The resolution will be a concurrent one, requiring a simple majority vote in both chambers to pass.

We agree that Paul has an uphill battle on his proposal, but his heart is in the right place. It may take some time to get this done or perhaps it may never happen, but at least Paul has followed through on his promise and by proposing this, he has opened the door to reasonable debate on the matter.

We also applaud Paul for following through on yet another campaign promise and that is introducing a bill to audit the Federal Reserve.

Paul filed the bill Wednesday and said the agency’s monetary policies need a critical look.

We couldn’t agree with Sen. Paul more. Even the Federal Reserve shouldn’t be immune from oversight.

If passed, the bill would remove restrictions now in place that prevent the Government Accountability Office from conducting Federal Reserve audits.

Another piece of legislation that Paul has introduced could save $500 billion in one year.

It would slash numerous federal programs, including $42 billion from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s food stamp program - a 30 percent reduction from the current funding level. It also would eliminate numerous other programs, including the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts. It would also cut $16 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and would roll back spending to 2008 levels.

Paul’s proposal would also impose large cuts at the Department of Education. Since its creation several decades ago, this sprawling and costly bureaucracy can demonstrate only the most limited progress in the academic performance of our nation’s kids.

These deserve debate and ideas have the potential to reduce the deficit.

Paul said by rolling back spending to 2008 levels and eliminating the most wasteful programs, the government can still keep 85 percent of its funding in place.

These bills introduced by Paul are well-intentioned, and we are hopeful that they get a fair debate.

Politics, of course, is the art of the possible and Paul’s proposals set the bar high for cutting federal spending. President Barack Obama, on the other hand, set the bar too low in his State of the Union address. Most likely Congress will end up somewhere in between in their cutting efforts.

Still, Paul has done something somewhat rare in politics by quickly following up on his campaign promises regarding fiscal restraint and for that, he deserves to be commended.