United States Sen. Rand Paul hosted a community forum with regional leaders Friday morning to discuss issues pertinent to the region and hear concerns from local communities.
Paul fielded questions at Covington City Hall from the attendees while also expounding on his own policy platform and the state of the country generally. He began the forum by arguing that, overall, things were getting better.
If you look at things in historical terms, Paul said, “we live in an amazing time.”
In spite of this, Paul said, there were still things that worried him, such as the imposition of tariffs and their effect on local businesses. He also expressed concern about the national debt.
Paul has been critical of the Trump administration’s tariff policies and has repeatedly advocated for free trade international trade. What’s more, Paul said, Kentucky businesses in his experience were not in favor of the tariffs.
“Virtually every business interest in Kentucky has told me they don’t think the tariffs are a good idea,” Paul said.
Still, there were things he liked about the new administration, especially as it related to cuts to federal spending and programs. If anything, there should be more cuts, he said, or at the very least a redistribution of who should pay for it. As an example, he pitched reallocating Medicaid spending to be paid evenly “50/50” between the states and the federal government, although he didn’t think that was likely to happen. He also advocated for raising the eligibility age for Social Security.
“You can’t ever balance your budget until you get to entitlements,” Paul said. “Ultimately, we’re going to cross this road at some point, whether we like it or not; nobody wants to do it.”
Paul eventually opened up the floor to questions.
Dayton City Administrator Jay Fossett asked about federal funding for local projects.
“Is that funding going to continue?” Fossett asked.
Paul said that many of the proposed presidential cuts would likely end up in court as the money has already been allocated by Congress. While he admitted that the current state of things is chaotic, he said, “I think a lot of that resumes at some point.”
Depending on how things worked out in the courts, he predicted things would likely be more stable by the fall.
Newport Mayor Tom Guidugli Jr. asked a similar question, specifically about infrastructure and changes in the federal workforce.
“We’ve got some major infrastructure projects, but I believe that there’s some challenges with the staffing at those offices and responding, and that’s part of the challenge is there’s no one to take the call,” Guidugli said.
Paul encouraged him to contact his own staff to see what they could do to remove the “red tape.”
Other topics discussed included FEMA operations, especially in the wake of last month’s historic flooding, vaccine mandates, cost of child care, cryptocurrency (which Paul was a proponent of) and housing. Paul’s responses to these questions were generally reflective of his libertarian politics, emphasizing the need to reduce federal power and spending in favor of greater state control and autonomy.
“State and local government works much better,” Paul said.
Covington Mayor Ron Washington brought up the issue of housing in the region. Covington recently instituted a committee on the possibility of repurposing abandoned properties in the city for affordable housing.
Read our latest investigation into NKY’s housing shortage.
“On the federal level, what do you guys see?” Washington asked. “Do you see the ability to help with the rising price of homes?”
Paul reemphasized what he saw as the inadequacies of the federal government, and discussed some of the market conditions that contributed to the rise in housing prices, such as changes in supply and the devaluation of the dollar.
The solution, Paul said, should be done in “a fiscally responsible way” and recommended that local leaders meet with home builders to figure out what was constraining builders in building in certain areas.
“We’re doing that,” Washington said. “We’re convening builders and people that are in this space, and and we’re trying to make it as as easy as possible. We’re going to possibly give them the land that we own to encourage them build and to hit that median income.”
There was a problem, however, Washington said, “It doesn’t exactly pencil.“
Paul said he was generally not in favor of governments mandating certain kinds of housing to go in particular areas.
“I think more local the better,” Paul said.
After the meeting, Washington seemed optimistic about continued partnerships between the city and the federal government.
“I would love to have a federal partnership with the federal government to help with our housing needs for the people that are working and contributing to our society because that is a real need in the city of Covington,” Washington said.
He pointed to local, federally-funded housing programs, such as Covington’s home repair and down payment assistance programs, as examples.