The Best Kentucky Can Offer

by Deacon Blues

It only took incoming Tea Party Senator Rand Paul less than a week of being Senator-elect to toss aside his principles. Up until recently, he and other Tea Partiers have decried earmarks as evidence of spending excess that needs to be eliminated. Now that he's a Senator-elect, he tells the Wall Street Journal that earmarks are fine as long as he gets his share openly in committee. He says Kentucky has a right to its fair share of spending, "within the context of a balanced budget."

Huh? If you Tea Partiers are convinced that the budget is already more than a trillion dollars out of whack, then when could any spending for Kentucky ever be justified "within the context of a balanced budget?" Since Tea Partiers want to elimimate wholesale domestic programs like the EPA, and the Departments of Education and Labor, then Paul is saying that a Kentucky road, bridge, or the Rand Paul Sewage Treatment Plant has more merit than protecting the country as a whole.

Read the transcript from Paul's interview on "This Week" yesterday, and you'll get a glimpse of the new leaders of the GOP: a man who thinks the average federal employee makes $120,000 annually, and who thinks it's righteous to vote against increasing the debt ceiling because it would never pass and send the country into default. I'm glad he's so certain that in this new Senate environment there will always be adults in the room to rescue the country from his recklessness.

I'm sure Kentucky voters are so proud of themselves.