Rep. Ron Paul is the only remaining Republican presidential candidate who does not have Secret Service protection -- and he doesn’t want it, either.
Appearing on the Tonight Show on Tuesday, Paul told Jay Leno that the service costs taxpayers too much money.
“It’s a form of welfare,” he said. “You know, you’re having the taxpayers pay to take care of somebody, and I’m an ordinary citizen and I would think I should pay for my own protection and it costs, I think, more than $50,000 a day to protect those individuals. It’s a lot of money.”
But if he does receive protection, he already has a code name picked out for himself: “Bulldog,” he said without hesitating. Obviously the Texas Republican had thought about this before.
Paul also addressed issues concerning a brokered convention and his opponents' records, but the mood remained light. Earlier in the program, Paul joked about whether he should become a czar or the head of the Federal Reserve, to which Leno responded, “Then you can eliminate your own job.”
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