--- title: Rand Paul Chainsaws Tax Code in Campaign Video description: Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul promoted his campaign plan for a flat tax by literally chainsawing stacks of the U.S. tax code in a campaign video. canonical: https://time.com/3966731/rand-paul-chainsaw-tax-code-video/ author: Katy Osborn article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-07-21T21:52:56.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T09:27:01.353Z article:section: Politics og:title: Watch Rand Paul Destroy the Tax Code With a Chainsaw og:description: “Hey, I'm Rand Paul, and I'm trying to kill the tax code." og:url: https://time.com/3966731/rand-paul-chainsaw-tax-code-video/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1b3c20731b1050e5/69885bd95f570fc6d0b1c8a7/rand-paul-chainsaw.jpeg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Rand Paul Chainsaw og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Watch Rand Paul Destroy the Tax Code With a Chainsaw twitter:description: “Hey, I'm Rand Paul, and I'm trying to kill the tax code." twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1b3c20731b1050e5/69885bd95f570fc6d0b1c8a7/rand-paul-chainsaw.jpeg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Watch Rand Paul Destroy the Tax Code With a Chainsaw by [Katy Osborn](https://time.com/author/katy-osborn/) ## Katy Osborn Jul 21, 2015 9:52 PM UTC  Republican presidential candidate, Sen. Rand Paul waits to speak at a campaign stop at the Craig Lang farm, Thursday, July 2, 2015, in Brooklyn, Iowa. Republican presidential candidate, Sen. Rand Paul waits to speak at a campaign stop at the Craig Lang farm, Thursday, July 2, 2015, in Brooklyn, Iowa.Charlie Neibergall—AP by [Katy Osborn](https://time.com/author/katy-osborn/) ## Katy Osborn Jul 21, 2015 9:52 PM UTC Sen. Rand Paul took a chainsaw to the tax code, literally. But even a slickly produced campaign video couldn’t cut through the frenzy over Donald Trump. The Kentucky Republican released an edgy video Tuesday called “How would you kill the tax code?” Sporting a black “Detroit Republican” T-shirt, Paul talks about creating a one-page tax form with a 14.5% flat tax and destroying “all 70,000 pages” of the U.S. tax code. Then, for dramatic effect, he sets stacks of paper on fire, shoves them in a wood-chipper and takes a chainsaw to them, while an electric guitar squeals the national anthem. But veiled references to the movie “Fargo” and Jimi Hendrix’s performance at Woodstock weren’t enough to turn the video into a viral triumph. For that, Trump, the Republican frontrunner, [simply gave out](http://time.com/3966564/lindsey-graham-trump-phone/) Sen. Lindsey Graham’s personal phone number in a speech. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3966731/rand-paul-chainsaw-tax-code-video/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3966731/rand-paul-chainsaw-tax-code-video/"},"headline":"Watch Rand Paul Destroy the Tax Code With a Chainsaw","datePublished":"2015-07-21T21:52:56.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T09:27:01.353Z","description":"“Hey, I'm Rand Paul, and I'm trying to kill the tax code.\"","url":"https://time.com/3966731/rand-paul-chainsaw-tax-code-video/","keywords":["Rand Paul","2016 Election topic"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1b3c20731b1050e5/69885bd95f570fc6d0b1c8a7/rand-paul-chainsaw.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Katy Osborn","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/katy-osborn/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1b3c20731b1050e5/69885bd95f570fc6d0b1c8a7/rand-paul-chainsaw.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Rand Paul Chainsaw","caption":"Rand Paul Chainsaw","creditText":"Charlie Neibergall—AP","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/rand-paul/","name":"Rand Paul"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3966731/rand-paul-chainsaw-tax-code-video/","name":"Watch Rand Paul Destroy the Tax Code With a Chainsaw"}}]}] ```