I may not agree with all of his views, but compared to the other candidates, he is leagues ahead in my book!
Ron Paul for President News Story
Rep. Ron Paul: Running to Win in 2008
Dave Eberhart
Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2007
WASHINGTON -- Libertarians and conservatives alike, frustrated by their early options among the so-called 2008 front-runners, may turn to a familiar face in pursuit of the White House: Rep. Ron Paul.
Paul, R-Texas, has been a fervent advocate of limited constitutional government, low taxes, free markets, and a return to sound monetary policies based on commodity-backed currency. He's now considering taking his no-nonsense show on the road in an under-the-radar run for the White House.
Paul is an absolute original — never voting for legislation unless the proposed measure is expressly authorized by the Constitution. It's an iron rule that sometimes annoys his Republican colleagues.
A medical doctor by training and certification, Paul is nothing if not a thinking man. When he voted against authorizing military force against Iraq, his rationale read like a lawyer's analysis:
"This resolution is not a declaration of war, however, and that is an important point: This resolution transfers the constitutionally-mandated congressional authority to declare wars to the executive branch. This resolution tells the president that he alone has the authority to determine when, where, why, and how war will be declared. It merely asks the president to pay us a courtesy call a couple of days after the bombing starts to let us know what is going on. This is exactly what our Founding Fathers cautioned against when crafting our form of government . . ."
The Libertarian Party nominee for president in the 1988 election, Paul favors a non-interventionist foreign policy, is critical of civil liberties being curtailed in the name of the war on terror, voted twice against the Patriot Act, wants no part of a military draft, and would like to see the U.S. pull out of the United Nations.
Such stances by Paul seem to square with the basic libertarian political philosophy that sees every person as the absolute owner of his or her own life — free to do whatever with person or property — as long as such action does not infringe upon the liberty of others.
But this independent thinking man is no slave to a strict libertarian agenda — voting against the Central American Free Trade Agreement (bigger government, he says), supporting border security, and opposing illegal immigration — all postures that would rattle the Libertarian core.
His strongest appeal may be his unblemished and consistent record of opposition to the Iraq War, but is that enough to propel him along with that storied political commodity known as "momentum?"
Spokesman Kent Snyder, the chairman of Paul's exploratory committee and a former staffer on Paul's Libertarian campaign, says that while the congressman knows he's a long shot, his boss is running to win.
Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pa., Paul graduated from Gettysburg College and the Duke University School of Medicine, before serving as a flight surgeon in the U.S. Air Force during the 1960s. He and his wife Carol moved to Texas in 1968, where he began his medical practice in Brazoria County as a specialist in obstetrics/gynecology.
While serving in Congress during the late 1970s and early 1980s, Paul's limited-government ideals were not popular in Washington. He served on the House Banking committee, where he was a strong advocate for sound monetary policy and an outspoken critic of the Federal Reserve's inflationary measures. He also was an outspoken member of the Gold Commission, advocating a return to a gold standard for our currency.
The Libertarian View
With the mood of the nation today however, Paul's sharp rhetoric may find an eager ear. Here's how a President Ron Paul would address some of the telling issues of the day:
Foreign Aid
"Our annual foreign aid bill is one of the most egregious abuses of the taxpayer I can imagine. Not only is it an unconstitutional burden on America's working families, but this yearly attempt to buy friends and influence foreign governments is counterproductive and actually results in less goodwill toward the United States overseas."
Corruption on Capitol Hill
"Laws addressing bribery, theft, and fraud, already on the books are adequate to deal with the criminal activities associated with lobbying. New laws and regulations are unnecessary.
"Get rid of the evil tax system; the fraudulent monetary system; and the power of government to run our lives, the economy, and the world; and the Abramoff-types would be exposed for the mere gnats they are. There would be a lot less of them, since the incentives to buy politicians would be removed."
Middle East Policy
"Practically speaking, our meddling in the Middle East has only intensified strife and conflict. American tax dollars have militarized the entire region. We give Israel about $3 billion each year, but we also give Egypt $2 billion. Most other Middle East countries get money too, some of which ends up in the hands of Palestinian terrorists. Both sides have far more military weapons as a result. Talk about adding fuel to the fire! Our foolish and unconstitutional foreign aid has produced more violence, not less."
Deficit Spending and Social Security
"Congress [must] stop spending. When Congress outspends federal revenues, it raids Social Security funds to cover the difference. Unless Congress makes real cuts in spending — and stops spending Social Security taxes on completely unrelated programs — millions of Americans simply will not receive even a fraction of the money they paid into Social Security..."
"Under my [plan], your Social Security contributions are set aside in an interest-bearing account and cannot be spent. In other words, your Social Security account would be treated as your account and not a slush fund for Congress."
The Totalization Plan with Mexico
"Our Social Security system already faces trillions of dollars in future shortages as the baby boomer generation retires and fewer young workers pay into the system. Adding hundreds of thousand of non-citizens to the Social Security rolls can only hasten the day of reckoning.
"Social Security never was intended to serve as an individual foreign aid program for non-citizens abroad. Remember, there is no real Social Security trust fund, and the distinction between income taxes and payroll taxes is entirely artificial. The Social Security contributions made by non-citizens are spent immediately as general revenues. So while it's unfortunate that some [non-citizen immigrants] are forced to pay into a system from which they might never receive a penny, the same can be said of younger American citizens."
Monetary Policy
"Americans must realize that Congress, and the Federal Reserve system that permits the creation of new money by fiat, are the real culprits in the erosion of your personal savings and buying power. Congress relentlessly spends more than the Treasury collects in taxes each year, which means the U.S. government must either borrow or print money to operate — both of which cause the value of the dollar to drop. When we borrow a billion dollars every day simply to run the government, and when the Federal Reserve increases the money supply by trillions of dollars in just 15 years, we hardly can expect our dollars to increase in value."
The NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) Superhighway
"The ultimate goal is not simply a superhighway, but an integrated North American Union — complete with a currency, a cross-national bureaucracy, and virtually borderless travel within the Union. Like the European Union, a North American Union would represent another step toward the abolition of national sovereignty altogether . . .
"[T]he United States should not engage in the construction of a NAFTA superhighway, or enter into any agreement that advances the concept of a North American Union. I wholeheartedly support this legislation, and predict that the superhighway will become a sleeper issue in the 2008 election."
Gun Control
"Tortured interpretations of the Second amendment cannot change the fact that both the letter of the amendment itself and the legislative history conclusively show that the Founders intended ordinary citizens to be armed. The notion that the Second amendment confers rights only upon organized state-run militias is preposterous; the amendment is meaningless unless it protects the gun rights of individuals."
Universal Health Care
"The problems with our health-care system are not the result of too little government intervention, but rather too much. Contrary to the claims of many advocates of increased government regulation of health care, rising costs and red tape do not represent market failure. Rather, they represent the failure of government policies that have destroyed the health care market.
"It's time to rethink the whole system of HMOs and managed care. This entire unnecessary level of corporatism rakes off profits and worsens the quality of care. But HMOs did not arise in the free market; they are creatures of government interference in health care dating to the 1970s. These non-market institutions have gained control over medical care through collusion between organized medicine, politicians, and drug companies, in an effort to move America toward ‘free' universal health care."
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© NewsMax 2007. All rights reserved.
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