2013 State of the Union address: on Budget & Economy

Rand Paul: FactCheck: US borrowing $30,000 per second, not $50,000

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that the public debt will increase in the current fiscal year by an additional $949 billion. That comes to $30,093 per second. Now, that per-second figure was considerably higher earlier in the Obama administration. In 2011 the U.S. was borrowing $47,564.68 every second. We don't mean to minimize the scope of the nation's debt problem. But Paul is wrong to suggest the president will "continue to borrow $50,000 every second," when CBO projects the U.S. will borrow about 40 percent less than that this fiscal year.

Barack Obama: FactCheck: $2.5T deficit reduction is a debatable estimate

Obama has cited the $2.5 trillion figure on numerous occasions. It is based largely on two pieces of legislation: the Budget Control Act, which placed caps on discretionary spending, and the American Taxpayer Relief Act, which prevented tax hikes on most Americans but allowed rates to go up on the top 1% of taxpayers.

Republicans challenge the $2.5 trillion figure with some justification, because the amount of savings depends heavily on the baseline--that is, the starting point of comparison.

Barack Obama: $4T in deficit reduction: tax the top 1%

Over the last few years, both parties have worked together to reduce the deficit by more than $2.5 trillion-- mostly through spending cuts, but also by raising tax rates on the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans. As a result, we are more than halfway towards the goal of $4 trillion in deficit reduction that economists say we need to stabilize our finances.

Barack Obama: Uphold full faith & credit of US; keep government open

Barack Obama: Home mortgage problems are holding back our economy

Marco Rubio: Tax, borrow, & spend is not the way out of the recession

This idea--that our problems were caused by a government that was too small--it's just not true. In fact, a major cause of our recent downturn was a housing crisis created by reckless government policies.

And the idea that more taxes and more government spending is the best way to help hardworking middle class taxpayers--that's an old idea that's failed every time it's been tried.

Marco Rubio: Real problem is $1T deficit each year since 2009

The President loves to blame the debt on President Bush. But President Obama created more debt in four years than his predecessor did in eight.

The real cause of our debt is that our government has been spending $1 trillion more than it takes in every year. That's why we need a balanced budget amendment.

Rand Paul: Borrowing $50,000 per second is not sustainable

The path we are on is not sustainable, but few in Congress or in this Administration seem to recognize that their actions are endangering the prosperity of this great nation.

All that we are, all that we wish to be is now threatened by the notion that you can have something for nothing, that you can have your cake and eat it too, that you can spend a trillion dollars every year that you don't have.

Congress is debating the wrong things. Every debate in Washington is about how much to increase spending--a little or a lot. About how much to increase taxes--a little or a lot. Only in Washington could an increase of $7 trillion in spending over a decade be called a cut.

Rand Paul: America needs Adam Smith, not Robin Hood

Over the past 4 years the President has added over $6 trillion in new debt and may well do the same in a second term. What solutions does he offer? He takes entitlement reform off the table and seeks to squeeze more money out of the private sector.

He says he wants a balanced approach. What the country really needs is a balanced budget. Washington acts in a way that your family never could--they spend money they do not have, they borrow from future generations, and then they blame each other for never fixing the problem.

Rand Paul: Penny Plan: Each $1 by one penny & balance budget by 2019

To begin with, we absolutely must pass a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution! The amendment must include strict tax and spending limitations.

Liberals complain that the budget can't be balanced but if you cut just one penny from each dollar we currently spend, the budget would balance within six or seven years. The Penny Plan has been crafted into a bill that millions of conservatives across the country support.

Where would we cut spending; well, we could start with ending all foreign aid to countries that are burning our flag and chanting death to America. The President could begin by stopping the F-16s and Abrams tanks being given to the radical Islamic government of Egypt.

Rand Paul: Keep the sequester, and increase it to $4T

Not only should the sequester stand, many pundits say the sequester really needs to be at least $4 trillion to avoid another downgrade of America's credit rating.

Both parties will have to agree to cut, or we will never fix our fiscal mess.

Bipartisanship is not what is missing in Washington. Common sense is. Trillion-dollar deficits hurt us all. Printing more money to feed the never-ending appetite for spending hurts us all. We pay higher prices every time we go to the supermarket or the gas pump. The value of the dollar shrinks with each new day.