Article by FLN Staff. 

Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.) is not popular in Washington, but he should be. Rand, the conscience of the U.S. Senate, upbraided the wasteful “bipartisan” deal to avert a shutdown, causing the shutdown they didn’t want; the Senate voted on the bill early Friday, and the House did after, reopening the government that was “closed” for hours.

To be fair to the big-spending Republicans Paul railed against Thursday don’t have the votes in the Senate to cut spending. However, Paul rightly pointed out that, “When the Democrats are in power, Republicans appear to be the conservative party,” Paul said at one point. “But when Republicans are in power, it seems there is no conservative party. The hypocrisy hangs in the air and chokes anyone with a sense of decency or intellectual honesty.”

There are realities to a 51-49 Senate when it takes 60 votes to put a vote on the floor; 49 Democrats can indeed lock in high spending levels in a Republican “controlled” Washington. Yet, those Republicans don’t seem to be trying hard to prevent the deficit from ballooning to $1 Trillion. Rand Paul held a mirror up to the ugly face of the swamp, and they hated him for it. The Politico reflected that sentiment, quoting outgoing moderate Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.), “When Rand Paul pulls a stunt like this, it easy to understand why it’s difficult to be Rand Paul’s next door neighbor,” said Dent; Paul was assaulted by a neighbor last year.

Image Credit: Gage Skidmore [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons