Rand Paul (file photo)

Rand Paul (file photo)

Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul is warning a stock market crash may be ahead because the Federal Reserve has kept interest rates from fluctuating.

“People say, ‘Oh, we can just do that forever,'” Paul said today. “I don’t think so. I think there’ll be a day of reckoning.”

Paul is in the midst of a two-day campaign swing through the state, with stops today in western Iowa. Paul spoke late this morning at Morningside College in Sioux City. Paul said “greed” probably didn’t cause the housing crisis in 2007. He argued keeping interest rates “close to zero” may have been the culprit.

“Right now we’re still keeping interest rates at zero and the boom isn’t in housing this time, but it may well be a boom in the stock market,” Paul said. “What happens when people come to the realization that we’ve maybe overinflated the stock market again?”

Paul, a first-term senator from Kentucky, said government shouldn’t be trying to “manipulate the marketplace” by clamping down on interest rates. Paul joked with the crowd in Sioux City that there were “55” Republicans running for the party’s presidential nomination and Paul argued he was best positioned in that crowded field to challenge likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

“If we want to win as a party, we’ve got to figure out how to win Iowa — not just the primary. We’ve got to figure out how to win the General Election,” Paul said. “We lost Iowa twice to President Obama. We lost New Hampshire twice…Colorado’s another, Pennsylvania, Ohio. These are five states all won by President Obama and Republicans have trouble winning. Right now I’m the only Republican who beats Hillary Clinton in all five of those states.”

AUDIO of Rand Paul’s appearance at Morningside College, 24:00

Late this afternoon Paul will visit a bar in the resort community of Okoboji. On Thursday, he’ll start his day in Dubuque, then make stops in Cedar Rapids, Brooklyn and Des Moines.

(Reporting by Woody Gottburg, KSCJ, Sioux City; additional reporting and editing by Radio Iowa’s O. Kay Henderson)