WEST DES MOINES, Iowa – A decade ago, U.S. GOP Sen. Rand Paul recalled strolling into a downtown Des Moines Halloween party wearing a red turtle neck with words that gave him a scare: “$18 trillion.”
Paul, Kentucky’s junior senator, was dressed as the national debt for a 2015 costume party at Buzzard Billy’s to engage with young voters ahead of the 2016 Republican Iowa caucuses.
“That was 10 years ago,” he told a crowd Wednesday, May 28, at The Hall in West Des Moines hosted by the Dallas County Republicans. “It’s doubled, $36 trillion and counting. It’s rolling so fast we’ve got to have the clock updated continuously. I’ve got a debt clock in my office, but it’s crazy.”
More: Trump’s tax policy bill clears the House. Next up: An opinionated Senate
Paul continues to harp on the national debt as the “greatest threat to our national security” after House Republicans advanced a sprawling budget bill that he believes doesn’t go far enough to rein in federal spending.
The fiscal hawk is among several GOP senators who say they won’t vote for the domestic policy package backed by President Donald Trump, dubbed the “one big, beautiful bill.”
It would extend the 2017 tax cuts Trump signed into law during his first term, impose immigration restrictions and slash an estimated $625 billion from the Medicaid public insurance program.
More: Congress passes budget bill with deep cuts to Medicaid and SNAP. What that means for Iowa
It also makes steep cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps, that would tally up to $300 billion over the next 10 years.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects the legislation would add $3.1 trillion to the national debt over the next decade.
Democrats have sharply criticized the measure as hitting the poorest Americans who rely on public assistance the hardest.
House Speaker Mike Johnson has made the rounds on cable news to urge passage of the bill with few changes after it narrowly passed the chamber, but that seems unlikely as several GOP senators have declared their intent to make some tweaks.
Trump has urged the majority-Republican Senate to bring the measure to a vote by July 4.
“Even though I do like a lot of the things that Donald Trump is doing, someone’s still gotta be watching the Treasury, watching the money,” Paul said.
With national debt soaring, Rand Paul says proposed spending cuts ‘are wimpy and anemic’
Paul favors making the 2017 tax cuts permanent, but he said deeper spending cuts would be necessary.
“I think the spending cuts are wimpy and anemic,” Paul said. “So, some of that’s because the president keeps saying, ‘We can’t do anything to Medicaid.’ If we can’t do anything to Medicaid, we’re not doing anything to Medicare, we’re not doing anything to Social Security, that’s what a large chunk of all our federal spending is.”
And while Paul said he would approve cuts proposed by the federal Department of Government Efficiency effort to curb spending, he believes the savings found there so far are insufficient.
DOGE’s charge to reduce the federal bureaucracy, led by billionaire Elon Musk until he stepped down late May 28 after Paul’s visit, initially set out to slash $2 trillion. DOGE has reported coming up with closer to $160 billion in cuts.
“The thing is is that we still have to look at entitlements,” Paul said, referring to programs such as Medicaid and Social Security that are mandatory and make up more than half of federal spending.
Paul urges shifting more funding for programs like Medicaid to the states
The budget bill House Republicans moved forward would shift a significant share of SNAP and Medicaid costs to the states.
After President Obama’s Affordable Care Act passed in 2010, most states expanded Medicaid as the federal government initially covered all expansion enrollees who were newly eligible for Medicaid. The federal government’s share later dropped to 90% of expansion costs.
To make a true dent in the national debt, Paul said he wants to see the federal portion of Medicaid costs further reduced to an even split with states.
“It helps us balance our budget,” Paul said. “You say, ‘Well, what’s the difference? Now the states have to pay.’ States then have to decide to tax you, and they have decided to have (Medicaid) work requirements” and limit who gets SNAP benefits.
Republican state lawmakers on May 14 sent Gov. Kim Reynolds a bill that would require thousands of Medicaid recipients to fulfill work requirements or lose their health care coverage.
The Republican governor has already submitted a request to the federal government for permission to institute work requirements for about 171,000 people enrolled in the Iowa Health and Wellness Plan, the state’s Medicaid expansion program.
And U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins approved Reynolds’ waiver request to limit Iowans’ use of SNAP dollars to buy foods that are exempt from sales tax in Iowa.
“We need people in your state Legislature who’re brave enough to take it on and just say we can do it,” Paul said. “And I think then you have to explain it to people. If everybody in Iowa were told the state Legislature were cutting people on Medicaid, you may lose, so what you have to do is you’re going to tell them, ‘We’ll get you something better.'”
Marissa Payne covers the Iowa Statehouse and politics for the Register. Reach her by email at mjpayne@registermedia.com. Follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @marissajpayne.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Sen. Rand Paul slams Trump-backed GOP spending cuts: ‘wimpy and anemic’
