If we get rid of our flawed welfare state, we could also get rid of the Internal Revenue Service, former Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, told Newsmax TV.

Under "the current government of warfare and welfare, you not only need the IRS, you need deficit financing, you need the Federal Reserve to print the money and keep the boondoggle going until the whole thing collapses," he told the network's "MidPoint' program.

The Fed has kept its federal funds rate target at a record low of zero to 0.25 percent since December 2008.

And its balance sheet has ballooned to $4.5 trillion through quantitative easing.

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"If you got rid of the IRS tomorrow and didn't change the role of government, there would be serious repercussions," Paul said.

"But we as believers in liberty do not believe that we should be running a welfare state. We believe in sound money," he explained.

"We don't believe in printing money, and we don't believe that we should be the policemen of the world. Under those conditions, just think, we only got the IRS 100 years ago," he said.

"So I would say that we ought to look to our own history, and it wasn't too bad after all."

Paul ran for president as a Republican in 2008 and 2012, and his son Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is pursuing the GOP nomination for 2016.

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