Senate challenger Chris McDaniel says he wants to curb federal spending

JACKSON, Mississippi -- State Sen. Chris McDaniel says if he's elected to the U.S. Senate, he wants to reduce federal spending and work with Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah, who were elected with the help of tea party voters.

McDaniel, who was first elected to the state Legislature in 2007, is challenging longtime U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran in the June 3 Republican primary.

The contest has been dominated recently with news about a Mississippi blogger photographing Cochran's wife in the nursing home where she has lived the past 13 years with dementia. However, both candidates have said repeatedly that they want to discuss issues.

The Associated Press recently interviewed both candidates. Here are excerpts from the interview with McDaniel, which was done May 15 outside the state Capitol in Jackson:

AP: You've said many times that Thad Cochran has been in Washington too long, has spent too much money and is too liberal. Could you elaborate?

McDaniel: "He's voted to fund Obamacare, he's voted to increase the debt ceiling ... he's voted to increase his own pay multiple times. He's voted to increase the U.S. share of UN peacekeeping costs. He's voted against the border fence.... He voted to confirm Chuck Hagel. He voted to confirm John Kerry. He voted to confirm Ruth Bader Ginsburg. These are the votes of a senator who's been in Washington so long, he's forgotten his Mississippi conservative values."

AP: You criticize Cochran on spending, but the Cochran camp criticizes you for some of the projects you have voted for at the state Capitol.

McDaniel: "In just the last few years, I've voted against more than $1 billion in bond bills.... Compare the records. He's voted for $17.5 trillion in spending, and they claim I've voted for about half a billion? It's not even a close call."

"If we must have an enemy at the head of Government, let it be one whom we can oppose, and for whom we are not responsible, who will not involve our party in the disgrace of his foolish and bad measures." - Alexander Hamilton

"We don't intend to turn the Republican Party over to the traitors in the battle just ended. We will have no more of those candidates who are pledged to the same goals as our opposition and who seek our support. Turning the Party over to the so-called moderates wouldn’t make any sense at all." -- President Ronald Reagan

"A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice." - Thomas Paine 1792

"It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men." - Samuel Adams

"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams

"curb" federal spending?

The $4 TRILLION budget needs to CUT IT OFF AT THE KNEES - at least an 80% cut. That would equal an $800 billion government - still too big, but it's start.

The starting point for a valid candidate as far as I'm concerned is the clear recognition that our biggest threat and enemy is none other that the monstrous, coercive, tyrannical government that is executing a silent coup d'état here in America.

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