Rand Paul: Obama must be stopped

LEXINGTON, Ky. – U.S. Sen. Rand Paul told a gathering of local county officials from across the state that President Barack Obama has overstepped his authority on a number of issues, including immigration, health care, energy policy and his decision to attack the Islamic State and must be stopped.

"It is a major constitutional crisis right now," Paul told a meeting of the Kentucky Association of Counties in Lexington on Friday. "Does the president get to decide things because it's messy? ... That scares me to think that anybody, no matter what party they're in, thinks they have the power to do it."

The statements come on the heels of Obama's announcement Thursday of his new immigration rules that will protect from deportation as many as 4 million parents of American children who are in the country without the proper documentation and as many as 1 million other foreign nationals who are in the country without the proper credentials.

Paul appears to be laying the groundwork for his own presidential run in 2016 and has spent much of the last year traveling to early caucus and primary states, including Iowa and New Hampshire.

During a press conference after his speech, Paul discounted the idea of impeaching Obama over the issue. Instead, he said, there are many ways to address the situation, including lawsuits and withdrawing Obama's ability to spend government money to implement his program.

On immigration, Paul said he favors immigration reform but that the way Obama went about it is wrong.

Obama said he was forced to act because Congress has refused to do so. Sen. Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky, who will become majority leader in January, has said that he favors a piecemeal approach to immigration reform, which Democrats oppose.

"I'm actually for some kind of immigration reform," Paul said during a 20-minute speech. He said he favors allowing more temporary workers into the country as well as more immigrants who have doctorates in math and science.

"I'm for some expansion of all that," Paul said. "But I'm absolutely opposed to him doing it by edict. One of the fundamental principals of our country is the separation of powers.

"The danger of what the president is doing on immigration isn't necessarily the details of what he's doing now," he said. "The danger is allowing so much power to gravitate to one person.

Republicans and Democrats, alike, should oppose Obama because of that, he said.

Paul said that when the president has seized so much power in the past, the results have been "egregious." As an example, he cited the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

"The whole system of our government breaks down if you allow that," he said. "So this isn't about immigration."

Paul said he agrees with Obama's decision to try to stop ISIS, which has beheaded a number of Americans and British journalists and aid workers in the Middle East in recent weeks, but that Obama should have sought congressional approval first.

In an interview later, Paul said that Obama is "now creating law basically out of whole cloth and that's a real danger to the country."

When asked if Obama's actions warranted impeachment, he demurred.

"I think what it rises to is we have to challenge. ... The answers to constitutional questions aren't always going to be impeach someone."

Paul also called for Congress to stop trying to pass multifaceted reform measures and instead pass smaller bills that deal with just a few provisions on issues like immigration and tax reform.

"The problem is ... I've been there for years and I've not seen one of (the bigger bills) pass," he said.

Reporter Joseph Gerth can be reached at (502) 582-4702. Follow him on Twitter at @Joe_Gerth.