This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," July 28, 2011. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: This is a Fox News Alert. The House remains in recess right now but we are expecting the vote on the Boehner bill to begin shortly. Earlier this evening the speaker of the House, John Boehner, called for a last minute delay of the vote but House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's office confirms tonight it is still definitely on, meaning the vote.
Now, if the bill passes the House, it will then move to the U.S. Senate where it is widely expected to be rejected. Over on the Senate side, at least 57 senators have already said they would vote against it -- 51 Democrats, two independents, and four Republicans, including my next guest, have said they could not vote for a plan that doesn't have a balanced budget amendment.
So where does all of this leave us now? Joining us with reaction is Kentucky Senator Rand Paul.
By the way, Senator, this has just come over the wires and Fox News has confirmed there is now a growing possibility in the House tonight that in order to get the final votes for passage that there might be a tweaking going on of the Boehner bill.
So in other words, I guess that confirms there are not enough votes, so they are -- perhaps some members are saying that if this happened or this happened we might be able to support it. Would that be your interpretation?
SEN. RAND PAUL, R-KY.: Well, you know, if they tweak it right on up to "Cut, Cap, and Balance," I know that they can get 234 votes.
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: We know that.
PAUL: So, yes, just keep tweaking, it is fine with me. You know, the interesting thing is, Sean, you mentioned we have four Republicans. I think we have at least 10, maybe 14 Republicans in the Senate that are going to oppose the Boehner bill.
HANNITY: All right. Well, we've.
PAUL: So really.
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: The ones that I've confirmed are you, Vitter, Mike Lee, Jim DeMint.
PAUL: We signed a letter and -- but we privately know of at least probably 10 total, maybe 14 who will vote no on the Boehner plan. The Boehner plan never balances. It's going to add $7 trillion to $8 trillion to the debt. It doesn't change the course we are on.
An interesting analogy is to look at this is to say, if we froze spending, people could understand that, if we didn't spend any more money next year than we spent this year, and we did it for 10 years, Washington would count that as a $9.5 trillion cut.
Why? Because we are going to add $9.5 trillion to the debt over the next 10 years, so when they tell you they going to cut a trillion dollars, it is from proposed increases in the debt. It isn't meaningful.
HANNITY: I want to put a highlight on this because you have now signed on to the Connie Mack "Penny Plan" in the House.
PAUL: Right.
HANNITY: And it's a very simple understandable plan. For example, next year we are going to spend, correct me if I'm wrong, anywhere between 7.5 and eight percent more, the federal government will, than they are spending this year, correct?
PAUL: Right.
HANNITY: And the same thing the year after.
PAUL: Spending is going up at about seven percent a year.
HANNITY: Seven or eight percent a year for as far as the eye can see that we know, right?
PAUL: Correct.
HANNITY: So what you are saying is, let's look at the 2011 -- how much we spent in 2011, which is what, $3.7 trillion?
PAUL: Right.
HANNITY: You are saying, freeze it, and you support this.
PAUL: Freeze it or cut it by one percent, which is a very small amount.
HANNITY: Right. So what I mean is, we're going to not increase it 7.5 percent, but we're going to freeze it every year for six years, and then every year cut it just one percent from this year's level. And do that for six years and then 18 percent of GDP, which is historic, and then you get to a balanced budget, is that right?
PAUL: Yes. And what is amazing about this is they want to call us radical and extreme because we are talking about saving one penny on the dollar. What American family is not having to cut back at least one penny on every dollar because a family member is unemployed, because of inflation, because of bad economic times?
Can the government not cut one penny out of every dollar? I mean, it is crazy that we are called extreme because we want to cut government by one penny. But it also illustrates the fuzzy math up here.
When they talk about cutting in the Boehner plan, or they talk about cutting in the Reid plan, they are cutting from proposed increases. The "Penny Plan," by Connie Mack and myself over in the Senate, would cut real one percent. You would actually spend less next year than you spent this year, and that would be a real cut.
HANNITY: It is amazing, just by not increasing spending. It basically was saying, freeze government spending at 2011 levels for six years, and cut one percent a year, and we will have a balanced budget for our kids and grandkids.
That seems pretty simple to me. Let me ask you this, all that has been going on here, what frustrates me the most is after "Cut, Cap, and Balance" passed, which I really applaud the House for doing -- the House has done a lot of good work here, and there is angry conservatives, tea party members in the country tonight, because they're -- and they're asking the same question I am.
The president has not passed a plan, the Democrats have not passed a plan, the president hasn't even put his plan on paper. Why have they been negotiating against themselves? Why? Why didn't they just pass it and go like this, and say, your move?
PAUL: Well, you're right. That's exactly the point here. We passed "Cut, Cap, and Balance." We never got a counter move by the other side, and now we are competing with ourselves by passing another plan.
Here is the other problem for conservative members in the House. The Tea Party doesn't want this. The conservative Republicans in the country, the grassroots doesn't want this. If you vote for the Boehner plan, it is not going to become law, it truly is dead on arrival over here.
There is going to be an amalgamation between the Boehner plan and the Reid plan, and they will force something through with a lot of Democrat votes and a few Republican votes.
HANNITY: All right. So then wait a minute.
PAUL: But by voting to send the Boehner plan over here, you are abdicating what you stood for in the last election.
HANNITY: So then tell me, you think you know what the final outcome is by what I'm listening to you say here. What are you telling people tonight you think ultimately the final outcome then is going to be?
PAUL: The Boehner plan is not going be law so why lose your principles by voting for it? It's going to be an amalgamation or a combination of the Boehner and Reid plan, it will pass with 100 Democrats in the House, they won't need the conservatives anymore, and it will pass with all of the Democrats in the Senate and some of the Republicans.
But it's going to be done through scare tactics, like everything else around here, at the very end. Everybody gets worried and says, oh, we must pass it or the end of the world, we don't care what is in it any more, we just want to wash our hands, we want to be done with it.
HANNITY: Yes. Isn't that how the president passed the stimulus? He told the country we faced a catastrophe. Same with the continuing resolution, same with bailing out banks, and car companies, insurance companies, and Wall Street. We always get down to this panic, this artificial deadline, and the country is worked up into a frenzy. It's unbelievable, isn't it? It's so predictable.
PAUL: And one of the reasons we get all the way to this deadline is because we don't do our work properly. We haven't had a budget in two years. Harry Reid hasn't produced a budget. They don't have committee hearings.
I grew up and in high school and in junior high learned about how a bill was created. You remember the little song from "Sesame Street" or whatever, it is like it was supposed to go to a committee, be acted upon in a committee, go to the full House and vote.
None of that happens around here. We sit around from week-to-week and they produce no appropriations bills, no budget, when they had their own president's budget. It lost 97-0 because no Democrat supported their own budget.
HANNITY: Senator Rand Paul, we are going to continue to follow the Connie Mack "Penny Plan," which I think is a good idea. And maybe, maybe the Democrats are doing the conservatives a favor by saying no, because now they have to produce a bill.
All right. Good to see you. Thanks for being with us.
PAUL: Thank you.
Content and Programming Copyright 2011 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2011 CQ-Roll Call, Inc. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of CQ-Roll Call. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox