Rand Paul: “reserving the right to object, one of the pledges I made to the people of Kentucky when I came here is that I would read…”

“reserving the right to object, one of the pledges I made to the people of Kentucky when I came here is that I would read the bills. This bill came here on Tuesday. It is 180 pages long. It involves new criminalization--new crimes that will be created at the Federal level. It includes preemption of States. It includes a new Federal regime which would basically supersede regulations--or lack of regulations--in Louisiana or Texas or Oklahoma. I think it deserves to be read, to be understood, and to be debated, so I object to just rushing this through and saying: Oh, you can't read the bill. I told people--everybody involved in this--I just want to read the bill. We have been working on it now for 2 days, looking at the bill. We have been talking to people who worked on the bill. Is it not unreasonable to ask that we have time to read a bill? Here is the other problem: Every day in my office, business comes into my office. And what do they say? We are regulated to death. We are sick and tired of regulators from the executive branch who are out of control. So what does this bill do? It takes the power away from the States and creates a new Federal regulatory regime. Here is the whole problem: People are now saying ``Please regulate us,'' and when they get overregulated, they say ``Please stop overregulating us.'' We should think through how we are going to do things around here. We should take the time to read the bills.…”