Paul told Beck the most outlandish statement of President Obama's State of the Union Address was his claim that he had reduced the deficit by $2 trillion.
"It's the dumbest thing I have ever heard! He added $6 trillion to the debt, and he has the audcacity to get up there and say he reduced the debt by $2 trillion."
When Beck asked what it will take to "fix the country", Paul said there's only been one stimulus that has really worked, and that is leaving more money in the hands of those who earn it, because they will spend it more wisely than anyone else can.
"We have to have government, we have to have taxes, but we minimize that so we can maximize the productivity in the marketplace," Paul said.
In their responses to the State of the Union address, Paul and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida both said that raising taxes will not create private sector jobs. Rubio said if the economy can grow by 4 percent annually, millions of middle class jobs will be created, and the deficit could be reduced by $4 trillion over the next decade.
Paul outlined his 5-year budget in his speech Tuesday night, and he claims millions of jobs would be created by cutting the corporate income tax in half, creating a flat personal income tax of 17 percent, and cutting the regulations that are strangling American businesses.
He told Beck that his plan, along with a fix for long-term entitlements which are driving the deficit, could make some progress.
"If you want to stimulate the economy you need to do some dramatic things, because money goes where it's welcome, and it's not so welcome in the U.S., so it's going to other places."
On immigration reform, Paul said he is currently working on an amendment to the bi-partisan bill introduced earlier this week, which he calls "Trust but Verify". It allows the bill's reforms as proposed, but in stages, and requires Congress to approve a border security report each year before the next set of reforms is enacted. He says this would correct an imbalance between normalization of immigrants and improvements on our nation's borders.
"What has happened every time in the past is they promise us border security, and we get the normalization, but we never get the security," Paul said.
When asked about the sequester budget cuts that will go into effect on March 1, Paul said even though everyone dislikes it because it cuts in every area of the budget, it's probably a better cut than what Congress could come up with.
Paul said, "We'd be fools to get rid of this now, 'cause we'll not get anything better that the President would sign."
He stressed that the $1 trillion cut over 10 years is from proposed increases in spending, so the actual increase in spending would still be $7-8 trillion.
He's most concerned about the plan's military cuts in the first year, saying they will be difficult to accomodate, but it can be done, considering that the U.S. spends more than the next 14 countries combined for defense. His budget proposal would keep the total amount of cuts the same in the first year, but lessen the impact on defense by cutting deeper into domestic spending increases.
Regarding North Korea, Paul said he is legitimately concerned about their nuclear tests and their defiance, and he thinks our government needs to stop sending food money to them, because it doesn't go to the starving citizens, it goes to their army. Paul thinks if we stopped giving to them, they would have a new leader in 6 months or less. He also thinks Russia and China owe it to us as trade partners to help in the region.
"One thing I would do differently than we're doing now is we need much closer cooperation - and this probably has to be done quietly, not in the U.N. - but we need closer cooperation with Russia and China to contain and try to change behavior," Paul said.
Obama mentioned in his speech Tuesday that if Congress does not act to put a "carbon tax" in place, he will, implying that he will use an executive order. Paul referred to a recent court decision that said the President's recess appointments were invalid, and vowed to challenge the Administration every time they try to enact policy without the legislature.
Beck closed his interview by asking about Paul's spiritual life, saying he had asked his listeners to pray for Paul and Rubio, since they will be under enormous pressure in the next few years. Paul said he values those prayers much more than when he first got into politics.
"When I first started running people would say to me 'I'm praying for you', and I thought it was nice and everything, but I didn't take it as seriously as I should. Now when people say they're praying for me, I really do take it in a personal way, and take it as something incredibly valuable because I think that our country needs prayers, I think our country needs a spiritual cleansing. I really think we need a revival in this country, and I do need your prayers and I do need the strength to go on with this because this isn't always easy. But really, I think our country's problems are deeper than political, that we need spiritual leaders to come forward. We need something beyond just the politics of the day. You know I see it everywhere - something really depraved is rising in the country and we need something bigger than any politician at this point," Paul said.
