U.S. Sen. Rand Paul talks about national issues at Republican rally

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said in an interview Sunday he wants to work on what he called problems in the Farm Bill Congress is considering now, such as its focus on providing more food stamps rather than what can be done about opening access for farmers who are free traders.

"So it's really not a Farm Bill, it's a Food Stamp bill, predominantly," Paul said.

Paul spoke at a Republican rally at the Duck Inn Vineyard Room for Senate candidate Montana Auditor Republican Matt Rosendale, who is challenging U.S. Sen Jon Tester, D-Mont., in his re-election bid.

Paul said nutrition programs in the Farm Bill give too much.

"I think people who get assistance should be people who can't help themselves, and it should be temporary assistance until they can get back on their feet again," Paul said.

"We have made food stamps permanent," he added, "and there are literally $800 billion worth of food stamps that are in the Farm Bill."

Things can be done in the Farm Bill to make it better, Paul said. It needs to make marketing goods and other products easier for farmers, he said.

Really, the best thing for farmers, he said, is open access to markets. Most farmers are free traders, he added, and they want the ability to be able to sell their product anywhere around the world.

Paul said so the country has to be very careful that it doesn't construct barriers. Farmers export about 25 percent of what they grow and the country needs to make sure that they have those open markets to sell their goods, he said.

"I am worried about a tariff war," Paul said, "worried that it will lead to something that could hurt farmers. I don't think it has yet, but I'm concerned."

Pauls said he thinks that the United States needs to stop selling arms to Saudi Arabia due to problems with Muslims.

"They fund schools, religious schools, called madrases, around the world that teach hatred around the world of Christians, Jews and Hindus," Paul said.

"Fifteen of the 19 (9/11) hijackers were from Saudi Arabia," he added. "There is evidence that they spend over $100 billion preaching hatred, radical Islamic and violent jihad against the U.S.

"They are raging a war in Yemen right now and killing civilians," Paul said. " ... They need a really strong message and I think the strongest message is that we are not going to keep funding you."

Paul said he also wants to continue with further tax cuts.

"I think that when you work hard, your earnings are yours and you should give up only a small portion of them to the government," Paul said.

"We need a national defense, we need a few other things at a federal level, most everything else should be in Helena or in your local county government," he added.

If government is not local, Paul said, people are not properly heard by the government.

During the conference Paul said that when people look at what is going on in Washington, D.C., they may wonder how it got so bad.

Paul said when the Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act was passed, the 2,000-page document was not fully read before it was passed. He added that within the document it says 1,800 times that the U.S. secretary of health will decide at a later date how to write the rules for the program.

The rules are being written by bureaucrats and not by Congress, he said.

"It becomes wide open," Paul said, adding that unelected bureaucrats are basically writing the laws.

He said the Clean Water Act is another example of this. The act was well-intended, Paul said.

"I'm up for that," Paul said.

Nobody wants the waters to be polluted, he added.

"That's a good idea, that's a good rule," he said."

But since it has passed, he said, it came to mean that dirt is considered to be a pollutant and people's backyards are considered to be a navigable stream. He said that this has happened because unelected bureaucrats have made changes in the original act, making new rules and bypassing Congress.

Paul said he has a bill called the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act, which was introduced by U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga. This bill, he said, would simply say that any major regulation written by an unelected bureaucrat would have to be passed through Congress.

"We agree we are going to have a government," Paul said, "a really, really small government, so small you can barely see it, that's what the Constitution called for."

"We are the richest, greatest country on the planet throughout all of history," Paul said, "... but it's slipping away from us little by little we let government grow bigger and bigger."

He added that the government giving aid to people is ruining their work ethic, taking away their self esteem. Paul said health insurance shouldn't be free but it should be fair.

"Sometimes we get portrayed as somehow we don't care. No, we care, we just think that the government would be even worse," Paul said.