[Video] Rand announces 600k in Senate office savings

[VoluntaryAmerican]

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky, is returning $600,000 to the U.S. Treasury, money he said he saved through frugally operating his Senate office over the last year.

“It’s the only budget I control. ... It’s not enough, but it’s a start,” Paul said at a news conference Wednesday near of Fourth and Liberty streets in downtown Louisville.

In promoting his thriftiness, Paul said


http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20130220/NEWS010603/302200087/1001/Sen-Rand-Paul-announces-savings-600-000-running-his-office

Video at link, can't be embedded.

[pacodever]

Nice. And he is dead-on about the incentives. I sat through many meetings while department heads bitched about being required to make a bunch of unnecessary expenditures (to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars) to preserve next year's budget amount. One of the reasons I wanted to get out of govt employment.

[VoluntaryAmerican]

Nice. And he is dead-on about the incentives. I sat through many meetings while department heads bitched about being required to make a bunch of unnecessary expenditures (to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars) to preserve next year's budget amount. One of the reasons I wanted to get out of govt employment.

Yeah, I just wish he picked a better place to announce this... it sounded like a NASCAR event.

[FSP-Rebel]

I hope this starts trending amongst his peers up there.

[Suzu]

Why does he say in the video that it was $1.1 million if it was (as the article says) $600k? Or, why does the article say it was $600k, if it was $1.1 million (as Rand says)?

[Rudeman]

Why does he say in the video that it was $1.1 million if it was (as the article says) $600k? Or, why does the article say it was $600k, if it was $1.1 million (as Rand says)?


$1.1 million over 2 years. $600k this year and $500k previously.


The $600,000, which amounts to 17 percent of Paul’s $3.5 million office budget, was in addition to about $500,000 he saved two years ago, his first year in the Senate, Paul said.

[Article V]

THIS IS FUCKING BRILLIANT! BRAVO, RAND!!!

[V3n]

"It’s the only budget I control."

If this is what he can do with the budget he's got, imagine he controlled the purse for the whole enchilada!

[phill4paul]

Good job Rand! That was one of the things I liked about your dad. If the entire House did this it would be over a quarter billion savings annually. A drop in the bucket for sure. Still, it shows a desire to cut anywhere possible.

[jtap]

Kudos to Rand for being responsible and a good example. I would think this would make his fellow reps angry at him for showing them up as being wasteful.

[Aratus]

Cool, if the rest of the senators in D.C achieve at least a 50,000 to 500,000 savings
we all will have between a half million on up to about five million dollars not being spent.

[anaconda]

THIS IS FUCKING BRILLIANT! BRAVO, RAND!!!

Indeed.

Here's a list of 2010 performances:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/72184_Page3.html

[anaconda]

It seems to me that the only differences in office budgets from one senator to the next should be for different travel costs due exclusively to the different distances from their home state to Washington, D.C. This is clearly not the case. It doesn't cost Barbara Boxer an extra $6 million to travel to D.C. from CA. Although, maybe, for example, if you're on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee you need to travel more or something.