Senator Rand Paul succeeded in briefly shutting down the government last night when he demanded a vote on restoring the budget spending caps before voting on the GOP deficit-busting bill.  By the time you read this, however, it is expected that a coalition of Democrats and RINOs will have succeeded in passing a monstrosity of a budget bill that, although it will increase defense spending, will also increase domestic spending by hundreds of billions of dollars over the coming years and is estimated to create a 1.2-trillion-dollar deficit in 2019.  That's $1,200,000,000,000 added to the debt in one year alone.

Unfortunately, as a single senator, there is little Rand Paul can do.  But if he had been elected president, he could have done much more.

The current occupant of the Oval Office is perfectly happy with this budget deal.  For once, Donald Trump and Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi agree on something.  The Ryan-McConnell budget, which President Trump is supporting, is called a "good bill" by Nancy Pelosi and a "genuine breakthrough" by Chuck Schumer.

What could Rand Paul do as president against a Congress set on passing a budget-busting bill?  I was reminded of the answer to that by a caller to the Mark Levin show (at the 59-minute mark), who said:

When Ronald Reagan wanted to get something done, he personally lobbied members of the House, which was controlled by the Democrats[.] ... [H]e personally lobbied the [s]enators, and then he went on national television and made the case to the American people for what needed to be done and why[.] ... And the next day, the Congress's switchboard was ringing off the hook with people calling in to the representatives. We don't have any leadership from the White House on this.

I am convinced that Rand Paul would veto a budget-busting bill.  I am convinced he would take his case to the American people and keep the government shut down until the Congress, if not cutting the budget, at least did not increase it at the monstrous rate it is planning now.

Rand Paul would not be perfect on all the issues.  He probably would not increase the defense budget as much as some would like.  But what use is a Defense Department when our country is facing economic destruction from more than 20 trillion dollars in debt and hundreds of trillions of dollars in unfunded liabilities?  What happens when massive inflation wipes out our savings?  What happens when our currency becomes worthless?

These dangers seem a lot more important to me than the skirmishes in Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq, which never end because the local population loves Islamists, no matter how many billions of dollars we give them.

And Paul's views on immigration, while not entirely clear, could not be worse than offering to legalize at least 1.8 million illegal aliens (plus close relatives).

That's why I'm sad that Rand Paul isn't president: because the economic danger of collapse is the number-one threat to our national security, and no one in the Congress or the White House is doing anything about it.

Ed Straker is the senior writer at Newsmachete.com.