Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said on “Good Morning America” Wednesday that he’s going to vote against the House budget when it comes to the Senate.
A Republican himself, Paul said budget plans of both the left and right need work.
“I think what’s important and what the Tea Party is all about is … if we do what the president says, if we freeze things at 2010 levels, we’re going to add $13 trillion to the debt over 10 years,” Paul said. “If we do what the Republicans want and we cut $100 billion, we’re going to add $11 trillion in debt. Neither plan is sustainable, so what I’m about and what the Tea Party is about is keeping both Republicans and Democrats honest on this.”
Paul said he’d vote against the budget proposal because “much more” needs to be done.
“You have to cut enormous amounts, you have to do much more than anybody has proposed, but the alternative is we’ll bankrupt the country,” Paul said.
“What they’re talking about … is freezing this much of the budget,” Paul said, making a gesture with his hands to demonstrate a small portion. “Non-military discretionary spending. They’re not looking at military, which they will have to look at military spending if they’re serious about the budget, and they have to look at entitlements.”
Paul added that he is going to present a plan to reform social security “where it will be solvent in perpetuity” to fix entitlement programs.
“The way you do that is … to link the age of eligibility to longevity … You will have to gradually do that, that’s the only way you fix the entitlement programs.”
“If we could spend ourselves [Kentucky] into prosperity, if spending more money in each state were somehow making us much richer, think how much better we would be,” Paul said, adding that poverty is still a big issue in Kentucky, despite government spending to combat it.
“Think of Washington, D.C. We spend $20,000 per student on education there, and yet still the education system in Washington … is struggling.”
Paul said he will bring “all the numbers down” because he has no other choice.
“The alternative is, we destroy our currency paying for a massive debt,” Paul said. “You can either tax people or you can borrow or you can print the money to pay for the debt, but we’re at a point where … as we accelerate the printing of money to pay for the debt, you could destroy your currency, it’s happened in other countries.”
When asked about war and the possibility of a U.S. invasion of Libya, Paul said America should only go to war “reluctantly.”
“It should be the most important vote that we ever make, and that we should never do it just on the spur of the moment, we should have a grand debate … I think you have to be very deliberative in this, it’s a very important vote, and I think too often we go to war without thinking ahead,” Paul said.
Paul added that he wouldn’t go to war unless he were willing to send his own children or go himself.
WATCH: Rand Paul says he’ll vote against House budget
