This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, February 27th, 2015.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Shutting down many federal departments would barely register for most Americans.

So says Rand Paul, Republican junior US senator from Kentucky.

Paul delivered the keynote address at the Cato Institute's benefactor summit in Naples, Florida last week.

There is a libertarian moment going on in the country.

I think there really is.

I go to a lot of barbecues.

I have to watch what I eat, and I have to see how much it's going to be served tonight.

I try to eat half of what they serve me because I get too much food.

But I was at a barbecue in Paducah Konducah the other day and fell in front of me was loading up two plates of

barbecue and I said you're not going to live very long eating like that.

He said well my granddad lived to be 105.

But your granddad didn't live to be 105 eating like that.

He said, no. He lived to be 105 by mining his own business.

I think there is something to be said for that as maybe a maxim for government.

If we had a government that we're minding its own business, we'd all be much better off.

And I mean in all realms of life, minding their own business.

We want a government so small in Washington, we barely see it.

Instead, it's the opposite. I tell people, it's sort of like going to AA. I'm Rand Paul and I'm from Fly Over America.

And the thing is that we are so much different and thinking is so much different outside the city than inside the city.

So when I first got to Washington, I said that I wanted to cut $500 billion

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