Rand Paul takes hard line on tax pledge

One Republican is honoring his word. Breaking ranks with defecting Republicans on the no-tax-hike pledge, Rand Paul is holding his ground. For Paul, a promise is a promise.

WASHINGTON, DC (Catholic Online) - Paul said in an interview with Fox News' Greta Van Sustren, "I made a pledge to the people of Kentucky that I'm not raising taxes. I took a pledge. I signed a statement, an oath that I wouldn't raise taxes, and I'm going to adhere to it."

A number of Republicans have said they are willing to negotiate with Obama and possibly raise taxes in order to avoid the fiscal cliff, which looms on January 1.

Paul went further. "I think you should balance budgets, not spend more than comes in, and I think you should lower taxes, not raise taxes. In fact, if you want to stimulate the economy, I'm for cutting tax revenues. All these Republicans who want to give up their taxpayer pledge and raise taxes, I'm the opposite. I want to lower taxes because that's how we'd get actually more economic growth and maybe more revenue, if you cut tax rates."

When asked how he would raise government revenues, Paul suggested economic growth as the only sustainable way to do so. "You don't have to raise rates or even close loopholes. If your economy was growing -- you know, when the economy was growing for four years after the Bush tax cuts, we had plenty of revenue. Revenue went down when the recession came."

Paul added, "The reason we have a lack of revenue in Washington is too much spending and no economic growth. So we don't have economic growth. If the economy were growing at 4 percent right now, we'd have plenty of revenue. But you don't get the economy to grow by raising taxes. That's what they want to do now, and I think it's absolutely the wrong thing to do."

While Paul made clear he supports avoiding the fiscal cliff, he does not like the way it is bound to happen. "I think there'll be something really big -- some enormous, ugly bill with a lot of stuff in it, including raising the debt ceiling by a couple trillion dollars. They'll squish it into one bill. And sometime before Christmas, they'll pass it."

If so, then a great number of Republicans who broke their pledge to the American people will have much to answer for in their next election. As for Paul, his star is likely to continue rising.

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