No one would notice it was gone': Two federal departments Rand Paul would chop

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) won applause at a speech in Maryland Friday for saying he would eliminate the Departments of Commerce and Education if he could, a move that would eliminate corporate welfare and give power back to the states, respectively.

"The Department of Commerce is $30, $40 billion. I'd cut it all tomorrow. I don't think anybody would notice it," Paul said in a speech at Bowie State University.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said the federal government should shed the Departments of Commerce and Education, and the Export-Import Bank as well. Image: Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images

"I think no one would notice it was gone," he added.

He said his way of saving federal dollars would be to leave entitlements until the last step, and instead focus on things like corporate welfare. He said a big chunk of the Commerce Department is corporate welfare, and said he'd also get rid of the Export-Import Bank.

That bank helps to finance U.S. exports, but conservative opponents of the bank say it's unnecessary and mostly goes to huge companies like Boeing that can easy get by without it. "I'd call that corporate welfare too and I'd eliminate it," he said.

The Department of Education is another agency that can be scrapped, a decision that would give states the power to set their own standards as they did decades ago.

"We've had the Department of Education for… 30, 40 years now, but the vast majority of that could go back to the state level, and wouldn't have to be done in Washington," he said.

Paul is a possible candidate for the White House in 2016, and is well within the top half of the field in most recent polls.