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Republican Sen. Rand Paul (left) and his Democratic challenger, Lexington Mayor Jim Gray, during Fancy Farm 2016.(Photo: Matt Stone/CJ)Buy Photo

WASHINGTON Sen. Rand Paul has never been shy about touching thethird rail of politics Social Security reform. In a new campaign ad, he defends his proposals as a way to save the retirement program, not gut it.

Pauls Democratic challenger, Lexington Mayor Jim Gray, recently launched an attack on Pauls ideas allowing people to put some of their Social Security taxes intopersonal investment accounts and raisingthe retirement age as ominous threats to seniors.

But in a new ad scheduled to start airing Thursday, Paulsays his approachshows courage and sets him apart from skittish politicians who fear the tough choices necessaryto addressSocial Security's serious financial problems. The entitlement program isdeep in the red because there are fewer workers and more retirees.

I support proposals that would fully fund the shortfall in Social Security while preserving the system for seniors and implementing reforms to save the program for younger generations, Paul says in the new ad.

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The back-and-forth between Paul and Gray illustrates a classic election-year battlebetween Republicans and Democrats overhow to keep Social Security solvent without slashing benefits or raising taxes. Paul is a Republican running for a second term.

In 1970, there were 3.7 workers for every senior collecting Social Security. That figure will dropto 2.3 in 2030. Benefits will have to shrink if the program's deficit isn't addressed.

Although his ad doesnt mention it, Paul has advocated raising the retirement age to help keep Social Security solvent and accommodate longer life expectancy. In his 2013 federal budget proposal, for example, he suggested gradually raising the retirement age to 70 over 15 years. The current normal retirement age is 66, but it will rise to 67for those born after 1960.

Raising the retirement age would help Social Security because people would pay into the system over a longer period. But Democrats generally oppose the idea, in part because life expectancy is frequently tied to personal income, and they believe lower-incomeworkers would be shortchanged compared to the wealthy.

Grays ad also mentions Pauls push to let people invest their portion of the Social Security tax in personal accounts, which was part of Paul's fiscal 2014 budget proposal. Theidea is typically referred to as "privatization" of Social Security, but Paul prefers to describe it as personalization. Democrats oppose it as too risky, citing the volatility of the stock market.

Individual accounts offer full ownership and property rights that give retirees control over their retirement, Paul's 2014 proposal stated. A degree of risk is inherent to planning for ones future. To do nothing, leaving the program as is, will mean higher costs and lower returns for todays workers.

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Paul has responded to Gray's attacks with the new ad, but also byaccusing Gray of trying to scare senior citizens.

Dr. Paul has put forth concrete plans for saving both Social Security and Medicare, and anyone who would engage in the tactics of a typical politicianand demagogue the issue should be ashamed of themselves, said Kelsey Cooper, a spokeswoman for Pauls re-election campaign.

Neither candidate's ads mention a possible area of agreement on modifyingSocial Security's financing. Currently, the program taxeswages up to $118,500. Several reform advocates have suggested raising thatcap.

Gray's campaign website says raising the cap is one option that could ensure long-term stability.

Paul issued a dramatic tax reform proposal when he was running for presidentthat would have eliminatedthe current payroll tax and replaced it with a business transfers tax. That tax would have applied to 100 percent of a worker's wages, not just the first $118,500, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Tax Foundation.

Contact Mary Troyan at mtroyan@usatoday.com.

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Rand Paul, Jim Gray trade barbs on Social Security

This is a serious matter.It should require serious people making real plans with metrics for victory and an end strategy in sight.

That is clearly not the case right now.

We are seeing reports that U.S. arms are fighting U.S. arms.Turkey hasrolled U.S.-made M60 tanks into Syriato attack U.S.-backedSyrianKurds.These Kurds have our weapons and support -- and have hadspecialforces embedded with them.

We helped these Kurds take towns from ISIS, yet now we watch our ally in Turkey attack them and ourSecretary of State tellsthemto retreat from the gains they made with our help.

So far in this war we have funneled weapons to terrorists, armed multiple sides and generally acted as if we dont have a clue what to do in the region -- and weve done it all unconstitutionally.

A few miles away in Mare', Syria,CIA-backed "moderate" Syrian rebels fight Pentagon-backed Turkish Kurds.

All the whileISIS slithers away into the shadows to watch two U.S. allies devour each other.

Ironically, ISIS fighters now number under 25,000, while Turkish,IraqiandPeshmergaKurd forces are nearly 1 million strong.Ifonly our allies were united, they could make short order of ISIS.

So why are they so divided?Why does the United States continue to operate with no authorization for war, no strategy and no exit in sight?

This is an abysmal failure of the foreign policy establishment on both sides of the aisle, with the Obamaadministration deserving much of the current blame.

From the beginning of the Syrian civil war, this has been the problem. The Obama administration drew red lines that made no sense.Itarmed oppositionitdid not know well or understand.

Worse yet, the opposition to Bashar al-Assad has never been unified, and their hatred for each other typically trumps their desire to attack ISIS.

In fact, for many of the so called moderate Syrian rebels, ISIS and Al Qaeda are still viewed as allies against Assad.

Some rebel groups even acknowledge publicly that if and when Assad is defeated, their next target will be Israel -- not ISIS. And yet, despite this precarious state,Obama sends a steady drip of U.S. soldiers, a dozen at a time, into the cauldron of chaos.

So far in this war we have funneled weapons to terrorists, armed multiple sides and generally acted as if we dont have a clue what to do in the region -- and weve done it all unconstitutionally, with the president far exceeding his authority.

Enough. When Congress comes back this fall, we should immediately take action to either authorize this war or to end it, to demand a strategy and an exit plan from this administration and to institute some sort of sanity test to our current foreign policy in the region.

In the meantime, let us hope thatour underwhelming contingent of soldiers will not be trapped by constraining rules of engagement in a war withvagueboundaries and an ill-defined enemy.

War, of course,should not be entered into lightly. Our Founding Fathers understood this, debated it extensively and delegated power to declare war to Congress. Congress should assert itself -- declare war, or not, and give our soldiers a clear mission.Our soldiers deserve this.

Republican Rand Paul represents Kentucky in the United States Senate.

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Sen. Rand Paul: President Obama, what on God's green earth is ...

'Today, I will end where I began, ready and willing to fight for the cause of liberty,' the Kentucky senator said.

By Shane Goldmacher, Alex Isenstadt and Daniel Strauss

02/03/16 08:53 AM EST

Updated 02/03/16 01:54 PM EST

Rand Paul dropped out of the 2016 president race on Wednesday, short on cash and support, two days after finishing with under 5 percent in the Iowa caucuses less than one quarter of the support his father had drawn four years earlier.

The Kentucky senator, who pitched his libertarian-infused brand of conservatism as transformational for the Republican Party, will exit the national stage and instead run for reelection to the Senate. His moment in the 2016 campaign never materialized.

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Brushfires of Liberty were ignited, and those will carry on, as will I, Paul said in a statement.

Steve Munisteri, a senior adviser to Paul, told POLITICO that the senator called him after the Iowa caucuses to ask his thoughts on continuing the campaign. "The going endgoal was if we got a top five we would go on. Then Rand reflected on it and he called to get my advice and my advice was that he not go on," Munisteri said of the Tuesday morning call.

Paul told senior staff about his decision on Tuesday. Other staff were notified Tuesday evening and the entire Paul campaign was told via a conference call on Wednesday morning at about 8:45, according to a campaign source. In that call the Kentucky senator talked about smaller government, continuing his fight for "liberty" and the Fourth Amendment.

For months, Paul struggled to gain traction or garner attention in a race that has been dominated by Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. Paul hadnt registered in double digits in any national poll since May, after he had led some surveys in 2014 and had been declared the most interesting man in Republican politics.

Paul had initially been viewed as a stronger contender than his father, former Rep. Ron Paul, who ran for president in 2008 and 2012 on a narrow libertarian appeal. The younger Paul had hope to build on the libertarian grassroots base that had poured tens of millions of dollars into the elder Pauls campaigns and expand it to more mainstream Republicans.

In the end, he was able to do neither.

Rand Paul struggled to raise serious campaign cash, from both big donors and small ones. He had entered 2016 essentially broke, with $1.27 million in the bank and nearly $250,000 in unpaid bills and some of the remaining money unavailable because it was earmarked to be used only in a general election. Paul had burned through more money than he raised in each of his last two full quarters as a candidate, when others, notably rival Sen. Ted Cruz, were spending far more and still able to pad their political warchests. His supporting super PACs ended the year with a little more than $4 million in cash on hand.

Paul is one of the GOPs leading non-interventionist voices. But with increasing instability in the Middle East, terror in Paris and an attack in San Bernardino, Pauls risk-averse brand of foreign policy has fallen out of favor, as the Republican Party has returned to its roots as proponents of a more muscular and aggressive international posture.

A senior Paul aide said the campaign suffered from not only rise of ISIL, but also the rise of Trump. "Trump got in, Trump zoomed ahead, we collapsed, and he had a massive impact in caging our people from us," the top aide said. "And that, combined with this foreign policy environment, when Rand was more flavor of the month a year ago, it was before they were beheading people in the Middle East and that just really altered the conversation, the dynamic on those issues."

While candidates like Trump, Cruz and Marco Rubio the top three finishers in Iowa became better liked as the campaign wore on, Paul was the opposite.

By the latest Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll in Iowa, Pauls favorability had plummeted underwater, with 41 percent likely caucus-goers having an unfavorable opinion of him and only 40 percent favorable. That represents a remarkable swing from the previous January poll, when his favorability was 65 percent and unfavorability 25 percent. He finished fifth in Iowa ahead of Jeb Bush, John Kasich, and Chris Christie but was projected to do much worse in next weeks New Hampshire primary.

Paul's poor showing in Iowa marked a turning point, multiple Paul campaign aides said, painting a dire picture for moving forward.

"Third for sure, fourth maybe, but fifth wasn't [viable]," one campaign aide said.

"We did not see a surge in fundraising on that fifth place finish," one of Paul's senior strategists said. "Some money came in. You keep paying bills and live a little bit off the land but to what point? We took fifth. What then? We take 9th? After New Hampshire, South Carolina that was always going to be a disaster state no matter what position the campaign was in. So the calendar was getting worse for us in the short term."

Paul suffered another big blow last month when he was relegated to the undercard of the sixth GOP debate. He boycotted the event, saying he was running a first-tier campaign. While he made it back on the main stage for last weeks debate, he failed to make much of an impact.

He was also extremely unlikely to qualify for Saturday nights nationally televised debate in Manchester, N.H., according to criteria announced last week by ABC News. Paul failed to finish in the top three in Iowa and isnt in the top six in polls conducted among Republicans nationally (hes tenth) or in New Hampshire (hes seventh), according to POLITICOs calculations. Pauls standing in the polls wasnt likely to change before ABCs deadline of Thursday at 5 p.m.

He now plans to turn his attention to his Kentucky Senate race. Although, today I will suspend my campaign for President, the fight is far from over" he said in Wednesday's statement. "I will continue to carry the torch for Liberty in the United States Senate and I look forward to earning the privilege to represent the people of Kentucky for another term."

Paul drew a serious Democratic challenger, wealthy Lexington Mayor Jim Gray, last week, increasing pressure from national GOP officials to focus at home on his reelection bid. Though Gray is certainly an underdog, Republicans do not want to spend money in such a red state when they are protecting far more vulnerable incumbents in states like Wisconsin, Illinois and Ohio.

Paul's Senate reelection campaign team is expected to be spearheaded by Doug Stafford and Chris LaCivita, both of whom served as top strategists on the presidential bid.

Given his limited support, Pauls departure is unlikely to significantly alter the contours of the remaining presidential contest, though Cruz, who had competed most aggressively for Pauls libertarian base, is poised to swallow up at least some of his supporters. There was already evidence that some of Paul's biggest donors are beginning to move to other candidates. Scott Banister, a Pay Pal board member and major Paul contributor, immediately announced he was backing Cruz.

In a radio interview on Wednesday, Cruz described Paul as "a friend" and "a very good man" and said he hoped to win over his supporters. "Rand has been a tremendous voice for liberty in a sense that his father was for many, many decades," Cruz said.

Rubio, speaking to reporters after a town hall in Bow, New Hampshire, said he thought Paul "ran a good race," though he disagreed with him on "a lot of issues."

"He's a true believer on issues of limited government and liberty issues, and I respect him for it," Rubio said.

"I'd love to have Rand's support," Rubio replied when asked if he would seek an endorsement. "I haven't spoken to him."

"I also know that he is also probably now going to focus on his Senate reelection in Kentucky and we have to make sure he is reelected," he added.

Burgess Everett, Anna Palmer and Nick Gass contributed.

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Rand Paul drops out of White House race - POLITICO

The Kentucky senator and GOP presidential candidate lumped Clinton, the Democratic 2016 front-runner, and Rubio, a surging Republican candidate, together on foreign policy -- criticizing them for being too willing to intervene in Middle Eastern conflicts in an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper Sunday on "State of the Union."

"I see her and Rubio as being the same person," he said. "They both wanted a no-fly zone. They both have supported activity in Libya -- the war in Libya that toppled Gadhafi, an intervention that made us less safe.

"They both have supported pouring arms into the Syrian civil war, a mistake that I think allowed ISIS to grow stronger. And they both have supported the Iraq War. So I mean, what's the difference?"

He was particularly critical of both Clinton and Rubio over Libya, saying the two had advocated an intervention that led to instability and turned the country into fertile territory for ISIS.

"I fault Hillary Clinton. I fault President Obama. But I also fault the neoconservatives within my party like Rubio who have been eager for war in Libya, in Syria, in Iraq, and they want a no-fly zone in an airspace where Russia is already flying," Paul said.

"It's a foolhardy notion, and people really -- this is the kind of stepping it up to a debate over who would best be commander in chief that we really need in our country," he added.

Paul also took a shot at Rubio over an immigration bill he once sponsored with New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer, which included a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

"He was a coauthor of the bill -- I mean it was the Rubio bill, the Rubio-Schumer bill," Paul said. "So he does have to explain it. I think it will be a big part of things."

Originally posted here:
Rand Paul: Clinton, Rubio both 'neoconservatives ...

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At a campaign event at George Washington University, the Kentucky senator told the crowd that the National Security Agency's bulk collection of phone record data hasn't been stopped, despite a judge's order, due to a six-month window to end the program.

"So when they stand up on television and say the tragedy in Paris means you have to give up your liberty, we need more phone surveillance -- bulls--t!" Paul said.

Paul's libertarian leanings have been at the center of his bid for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. He has opposed U.S. intervention in the Middle East as well as government surveillance programs.

He also has called for a stoppage to the visa waiver program allowing European citizens to travel to the U.S. freely, saying we should only allow Global Entry travelers, who get a background check, to enter freely.

He reiterated that position Thursday to CNN's Wolf Blitzer.

"When a whole section of the world is saying they want to come here and attack us ... we have to be careful," Paul said. "It's hard to tell friend from foe."

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Rand Paul: It's 'bulls--t' to collect phone records after ...