Rand Paul: “I think this would be a tremendous benefit to the congressional candidates as well, because there would be more…”

“I think this would be a tremendous benefit to the congressional candidates as well, because there would be more interest. People are not even listening to the debates. If they are not even willing to listen to the presidential debates, how can they get interested in Senate races and in House races? The rating of the debates in 1996 was the lowest in 36 years. The Vice-Presidential debate, we cannot even get people to listen to the Vice-Presidential debates. It had dropped off 50 percent from 1992. In 1992, there was more interest. It is because we happened to have a billionaire interested, and he was able to stimulate some people in some debates. All I am asking for is for us to endorse the notion, and we have the authority, the money comes from congressional appropriations. We have written these laws. These are election laws. We have this authority. We have the authority under the Constitution and we have the authority under our laws to do this.”