Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul is calling the president’s State of the Union address nothing more than a “campaign speech” that doesn’t measure up to his own views on the domestic reforms needed to turn the U.S. economy around.
The Texas congressman has enjoyed a surge in popularity for his unique campaign message focused on individual civil liberties, a constitutional government and a reduced U.S. military presence overseas. His support base has included a great number of younger voters, the same demographic that helped President Barack Obama win the 2008 presidential election.
Mr. Paul compared the policies expressed in the president’s SOTU speech to his own policies expressed in his “Plan to Restore America,” which is posted to his presidential campaign website.
President Obama’s speech focused on job creation, tax reform and creating more “economic fairness” for middle class Americans. Mr. Paul compared this to his “Plan to Restore America” which proposes lowering the corporate tax rate to 15 percent, cutting $1 trillion from the federal budget in one year, and repealing the Dodd-Frank law, among other proposed reforms.
The Texas lawmaker also used a recent incident involving the TSA and his son, Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul to show that the Obama administration does not support individual civil liberties. Senator Paul was recently detained by TSA agents for refusing a full body pat down for a flight to Washington D.C.
“In a speech where much of the rhetoric was devoted to job creation, it was strange that President Obama would brag about his job-destroying national health care plan, Obamacare, and the Dodd-Frank bill, which, contrary to the President’s claims, guarantees future taxpayer bailouts of large institutions,” said Mr. Paul in his response posted to his website.
At one point during his SOTU speech, the president said that there would be “no more bailouts,” referring to the taxpayer funded American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The Obama administration has claimed that the act saved the auto industry, but Mr. Paul and other Republican presidential candidates have called it a failure.
In contrast to Mr. Obama’s claim that there would be “no more bailouts,” Mr. Paul’s response states that that Dodd-Frank bill does actually allow for future bailouts.
The Dodd-Frank law is named after former Connecticut Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd, and U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat. Mr. Dodd wrote an op-ed article in The Washington Post in October of last year defending the law as a mechanism for ”regulating the largest and most complex Wall Street firms.”
Dodd-Frank has drawn constant criticism from Republicans, while it is often defended by the president and Democrats as necessary to prevent future economic meltdowns in the U.S. like the one that occurred in 2008.
Mr. Paul was also critical of the president not mentioning any proposed regulations for the Federal Reserve System. The Texas congressman popular campaign rhetoric features a proposal for legislation that would drastically end the Federal Reserve’s role as the central banking system in the U.S.
The Texas congressman has chosen to skip campaigning in Florida to focus on courting delegates in Nevada and Minnesota, two states with caucuses scheduled in early February. He plans to attend the second of two nationally televised debates this week in Florida on Thursday.
Mr. Paul is currently projected to finish at the bottom of the race in Florida, according to recent polls of likely Florida Republican primary voters.
