What Rep. Sarah Hanzas Gets Wrong About Rand Paul

I’m not a Vermonter. I wasn’t born there, I don’t live there, and I don’t know much about it except that Bernie Sanders is their Senator and they tried universal healthcare but it didn’t work out. What I do know is that one of their state representatives is hilariously wrong when it comes to Rand Paul. The junior Senator from Kentucky is the one the GOP needs to revitalize their brand. She can talk about ‘extremism,’ but she is wrong when it comes to the presidential candidate.

Let us address Planned Parenthood first. To begin, no federal funds should go to private institutions, whether it be Planned Parenthood or corporations. Senator Paul has stood against this since the very beginning, hitting hard on crony capitalism. Is it right to attack Planned Parenthood? Maybe not, but Senator Paul, while hitting hard on the pro-life issue, has a more libertarian position. Planned Parenthood should be receiving private donations in order to function, not relying on federal funding from taxpayers. There is nothing in the Constitution that says the federal government can give funds to private institutions, regardless of their activities. Unless it is federally or state run, Planned Parenthood, which is a private entity, should not get funds from the federal government.

Secondly, while Senator Paul may be personally offended by gay marriage, he is for equal rights when it comes to law. If she read his Op-Ed for TIME Magazine, she would know he called for the privatizing of marriage, which would allow for couples, regardless of their sexual orientation, to be equal in the eyes of the law. If marriage was private, situations like that of Kim Davis’s would never happened. Essentially, civil unions would rule the day, marriage would be for the religious, and gay people and straight people would go along with their lives.

I’m disheartened that she refused to discuss Rand Paul’s foreign policy. Or his two filibusters when it came to Constitutional rights. I’m disheartened to read that she refused to discuss the Patriot Act, the most unpatriotic of acts, and his opposition to it. I’m further disheartened to hear that she refused to see how Senator Paul’s common-sense criminal justice reforms. Or the fact that he would allow the states to pursue their own marijuana policies. Or that he would allow medical marijuana to be legal on a federal level.

She refused to comment on any of the points made in Rep. Paul Dane’s Op-Ed, only attacking Rand Paul on his stances on abortion, gay marriage, and Planned Parenthood, along with her negative opinion of the flat tax. The elimination of the payroll tax, which most lower-wage earning Americans see the biggest chunk of their paycheck taken by the federal government, would be given back to them. Several countries in the world have a flat tax, such as Estonia, which was rated by the OECD in having the most competitive tax system in the world. But let’s not let facts get in the way of emotion.

In the end, she tries to attack him on three positions which don’t make much sense and don’t really stand up to scrutiny.