On Monday, presidential candidate Ron Paul released his plan for saving $1 trillion in federal spending over three years. In an interview with us on Monday afternoon, he provided some important insight into how he would go about shrinking the federal government.

Paul's plan eliminates five federal departments, cuts others, and ends America's participation in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We asked him to explain those decisions. For instance, he eliminates the Interior Department. We noted that few people might know what it does.

“People don't know about it, so why don't we get rid of it?” he said. “Some of these things we don't even know exist.”

But the National Park Service is in the Interior Department. Privatize Yellowstone? No, Paul said, he'd keep the parks. But his plan doesn't say that.

“The main purpose here is to emphasize the serious trouble we're in,” Paul said. He kept going back to that big-picture point whenever we pressed for details.

He said ending all foreign military deployments would boost the domestic economy because troops brought home would spend money here. But of course, many of them would no longer be employed.

Paul is right that the federal government needs actual shrinking. But his proposal is more of a political shot across the bow than a workable plan.