Rand Paul’s six-cent plan puts Medicare on the cut list
His proposed budget resolution promises balance in five years through across-the-board cuts, including Medicare, putting the plan’s family stakes before lawmakers
Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky introduced the Six Penny Plan as a federal budget resolution on Sept. 22, his Senate office announced, promising to balance on-budget outlays and revenues within five years.
The office set the plan against a ledger deep in the red. Washington ran a deficit of about $2 trillion in the first 11 months of the fiscal year, the release said. It added that gross national debt topped $40 trillion. The office also cited the CBO’s projection that a fiscal 2026 deficit near $2.1 trillion would be the third-largest nominal deficit on record, behind only the pandemic years1. For families, the question is what those cuts would touch on the way to balance.
“can't imagine giving out money when you're running a deficit.”
How the cuts work
According to the release, the first year would bring spending to 94 percent of current levels, with annual six-percent reductions continuing until the budget balances in year five. After that, spending would be allowed to rise at the same pace as revenues over the next five years1.
The resolution leaves the revenue side alone: it sets the change in aggregate federal revenues at zero in every year from 2027 through 2036. Paul told Fox News Digital that the cuts would not apply to Social Security, but they would apply to Medicare3. The plan calls for federal spending cuts and nothing else, and it is a proposal2, not a change already made to federal spending.
The family budget test
Family Brief judges a budget by one standard: whether it helps families form and afford children. By that standard, runaway debt is a family issue, and Paul’s release puts it in household terms. The national debt “now costs every household nearly $300,000,”1 he said.
A five-year balance goal is a serious fiscal objective. The family test is what the path to it costs parents, and Paul’s across-the-board approach4 makes that test sharper, not softer. Paul himself told Fox News Digital that both parties are afraid to tell the American public that some things they like from government would have to be reduced3. He is right to say it. Lawmakers who back the plan owe families the rest of the answer: which reductions, and what they mean for household budgets. A budget serves the country when it strengthens the families on whom its future depends.
Paul’s fiscal record
Paul’s Senate office says that in 2018, a simple spending freeze was enough to balance the budget within five years. Now, he told Fox News Digital, “it takes about a 6% cut.” He has also broken with President Trump’s proposed $5,000 “Trump dividend,” saying he “can't imagine giving out money when you're running a deficit.”3
The new resolution sets recommended budget levels for fiscal years 2027 through 20362. Before they back it, lawmakers should show families how its even cuts4 would work in practice and what they would mean for family formation and the ability to afford children.
Sources
- Dr. Rand Paul Introduces Six Penny Plan to Balance the Federal Budget in Five Years
- Six Penny Plan — proposed concurrent resolution text
- GOP fiscal hawk sounds alarm on 'out of control' federal spending, saying 'both parties have failed us'
- @RandPaul on X, 2026-09-02: My Six Penny Plan would: ✅ Cut six cents of every dollar the federal government spends ✅ Make even cuts across the board ✅ Balance the budget in 5 years, 2026-09-02
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