Paul Pounces On Lagging Super Committee

By Adrianna McGinley

Presidential hopeful Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) blasted the so-called super committee for failing to produce a plan to reduce the national deficit by $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years, an amount Paul called “laughably small.”

In a statement released Monday, Paul said the super committee “merely needs to cut about $120 billion annually from the federal budget over the next 10 years to meet its modest goals, but even this paltry amount has produced hand-wringing and hysteria on Capitol Hill.”

Paul said the cuts the 12-member panel was tasked with making were from previously proposed increases, and nothing substantial would have emerged even if a deal was made. The fact that they did not accomplish that goal, Paul said, “shows how unserious politicians are about our very serious debt problems.”

The Texas congressman accused the federal government of “lying” when promising to provide Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits to future generations while simultaneously “maintaining our wildly interventionist foreign policy.”

To eliminate new debt and create a balanced budget, Paul proposed returning to the $2.3 trillion federal budget of 2004, a figure he estimates will match that of the national GDP.

“Was the federal government really too small just seven years ago, in 2004? Of course not,” Paul said. “Only Washington hysteria would have us believe otherwise.”

The super committee is expected to announce Monday that no deal has been reached.