When Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) issued his response to the State of the Union address, he did something that President Barack Obama hasn’t been able to do: He laid out a clear and uplifting vision for the country based in free market principles.
His vision was one in which Americans are no longer trapped in poverty by a bloated, overreaching government with programs that restrict growth and hiring. He made it clear that more government is not the solution — because government often makes bad investments in areas that would be weeded out in the free market.
“It’s not that government is inherently stupid — although it’s a debatable point — it’s that government doesn’t get the same signals,” he said.
The Senator set the record straight on the 2008 financial crises. He explained in detail that it was government, and not the free market, that caused the recession. After all it was government — through the Federal Reserve — that kept interest rates low. It was through that mechanism that the housing bubble was inflated.
“If we don’t understand the cause of joblessness, we’ll have trouble fixing it,” he added as a justification for his explanation.
Paul didn’t fill his speech with empty rhetoric or political attacks. Instead, he used it as an opportunity to present common sense, free market solutions that would get government out of the way.
Most prominently, he described his proposed Economic Freedom Zones. These zones would target areas hardest hit by our economic downturn. Places where poverty and unemployment have become the norm. These areas would be granted a reprieve from burdensome federal taxes and regulations. Payroll taxes would be cut for both employer and employees, making it possible for entrepreneurs to finally expand their businesses and leaving workers with more money in their pockets.
Paul warned that when government ‘picks winners’ for financial investment, it often ends up in businesses that fail. But the Kentucky Senator offered a plan that is different.
Instead of Washington picking winners and losers, his plan would allow businesses to compete and thus grow organically.
“Government spending doesn’t work,” he said. “It doesn’t create jobs. Only the democracy of the marketplace can find those capable of creating jobs.”
In addition to cutting taxes and regulations, Paul’s plan tackles education. Paul acknowledged that too often the very government trying to help those in need causes dependency and hopelessness.
School choice would empower the parents and children who need it most. Offering them tax credits to help cover the cost of education and establishing portability between school systems. School choice wouldn’t just help those who leave the public school system, but also acts as an incentive for public schools to better educate the students who stay behind. This introduces free market competition into a segment of the economy that has been monopolized by government bureaucracy.
“We must choose a new way,” the Senator said. “A way that empowers the individual through education and responsibility to earn a place alongside their fellow Americans in the most prosperous nation ever conceived.”
Watch Paul’s speech below:
