Paul: Justice equals peace in Baltimore

FORT MITCHELL – GOP presidential hopeful and U.S. Sen. Rand Paul Friday appeared to welcome the news that six Baltimore city police officers would face criminal charges in the death of a prisoner in custody, even if he didn’t say how he felt about which way the case should go.

“The sooner we get justice, the sooner we will get peace,” Paul said after a lunch meeting with minority and business leaders at the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce. He did not indicate whether the officers in question should be convicted or acquitted of any charges, however. The death sparked looting and rioting in Baltimore earlier this week, although Friday, the Maryland state attorney announced she would pursue manslaughter and assault charges against the police officers in question.

Paul also said he regretted a comment he made on a national radio talk show about “not stopping during a riot” earlier in the week. On the nationally syndicated Laura Ingraham show Tuesday, Paul linked the violence to a “lack of fathers,” praised police in general and quipped that his train rode through Baltimore the previous night and that “I’m glad the train didn’t stop.”

“You always regret off-hand comments after you say them because people misinterpret them,” Paul said Friday. ““But people shouldn’t misinterpret my intentions ... I have been one of the few people traveling to our big cities trying to find solutions to poverty there.”

The comments came after Paul, the junior Republican senator from Kentucky, met with about a dozen business leaders, including several minorities representing the area’s Japanese, Asian, African-American, Hispanic and Jewish communities, among others. Paul has made widening the GOP base to include more minorities a major goal of his campaign, and he did talk during the lunch about his efforts to reform criminal justice laws and sentencing guidelines nationally.

“We’ve done a lot of things wrong as a country as far as the length of time we put people in prison,” Paul told the group.

But most of the session centered around economic and other social issues, leading off with his efforts to rebuild the Highway Trust Fund to better pay for infrastructure projects nationally such as the proposed $2.6 billion plan to refurbish the Brent Spence Bridge and build a new bridge alongside.

•He said that his proposal to allow companies to move resources and capital back to the U.S. from overseas at a lower tax rate could mean upwards of $30 billion to $40 billion a year in new overall revenues. The proposal, also called tax repatriation and co-sponsored by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., would transfer those new monies to restock the highway fund. But Paul said the idea faces opposition not only from Democrats but from fellow Republicans.

The issue is in the forefront because Congress faces a May 31 deadline for renewing the fund, although temporary fixes are also being sought.

“What you have to realize is that most of the stuff that we do as temporary is fake,” Paul said. “I am of the hope that the repatriation act will actually create even more revenues so we can do new projects.”

Paul said that with other Republicans opposing it for various reasons, including the desire to include it in a broader tax reform effort, he didn’t know the likelihood of it passing.

“But I will add it as an amendment and we will get a vote on it this spring,” said Paul.

•Several questions focused around the current state of health care and the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. Paul said that without a Republican president, 60 Republican Senators and a Republican majority in the House, the likelihood of repealing the controversial law was highly unlikely. He also said that in addition to reforming the tax code, that the U.S. needed to lower tax rates, especially its corporate tax rate of 35 percent on average.

“Canada’s is only 15 percent, and it kind of embarrasses me to say that we are that far behind Canada in something like that,” Paul said.

•Still, some minority concerns came up. Cincinnati USA Hispanic Chamber board president Alfonso Cornejo asked about income inequality and immigration reform, and whether the immigration bill passed last year by the then-Democratic controlled Senate had any chance of finally passing both Houses.

Paul said no, but there were parts of the proposal that could possibly be passed in pieces.

“But if it is a all or nothing vote, there is no way it gets through the House and will not satisfy conservatives over there,” Paul said.

•Chikere Uchegbu, a manager of public policy for United Way of Cincinnati, also pressed Paul on why his Senate health, education and labor committee on didn’t appropriate more funding for early childhood education.

Paul agreed that early childhood education is important, but he said that Congress is always faced with the dilemma of how to choose.

“The first question I ask someone looking to spend more is where is it going to come from,” Paul said. “We have an $18 trillion debt that grows at a rate of $1 million a minute.”

Later Uchegbu said that he welcomed Paul’s efforts to include more minorities in the Republican Party, but also appeared wary.

“To the question of broadening the base of the Republican party, the more important question is to what end,” Uchegbu said. “Some of the things he has articulated he is for do appeal to a broader base of individuals. And if he shows that he is aligned with what those individuals want, I can see him getting that broad base of support.”