Senator Rand Paul

Well, I think they know where I'm coming from.

When we had the vote two weeks ago, 36 Republicans voted with me.

So it's not like it's a minority.

Over half of my caucus voted with me.

Now, there's still 16 big government Republicans who don't want to cut any spending.

And typically, they work with the big government Democrats.

And it is a bipartisan spending problem that we have here.

But most of them, I think, wish that they could be better and stronger.

But I think a lot of them think, well, I can't stake out this position.

But when I get home, I get nothing but encouragement.

People at home are like, thank you for standing your ground.

Thank you for standing up.

for what you said you were running on, which was balancing the budget.

Most of our conversations at home have been with people affected by tariffs.

So the number one issue I get wherever I go in the state is tariffs are killing the family farm, tariffs are killing the bourbon industry, tariff is killing the cargo transport industry.

So there's all kinds of talk, but mostly of tariffs.

On the idea of healthcare, I hear mostly from small businesses that are not in the Obamacare exchange but feel like they don't have the leverage to get a good price.

So what I've been offering for years for people who are worried about the price of healthcare is I'd like to let people buy it through an entity like Costco, which has 44 million members.

I'd like to make it legal for you just to go Costco and then somebody from Costco would negotiate for 44 million members and have the leverage to drive prices down.

It's that individual market of small businessmen and women who have trouble with the health insurance.