Ron Paul

This is a post from December 13th, 2007.

Well, some of you have asked me why I support Ron Paul, so here I am blogging about it (this is for you, Steph :)).

Ron Paul believes the government is unconstitutionally regulating this country out of liberty and into bankruptcy. He is the only presidential candidate whose voting record is 100% aligned with the Constitution.

Here is a summary of his most important views:

Iraq War: Ron Paul opposed the Iraq War from the outset. He believed that Iraq was no threat to us and was not involved in 9/11 (none of the 9/11 bombers were even from Iraq; most were from Saudi Arabia). The Iraq War is currently unconstitutional because President Bush ignored the constitutionally required Declaration of War (by Congress). Ron Paul does not believe we should launch preemptive strikes; he would end our interventionist foreign policy and bring the troops home from Iraq. These are his words:

"The war in Iraq was sold to us with false information. The area is more dangerous now than when we entered it. We destroyed a regime hated by our direct enemies, the jihadists, and created thousands of new recruits for them. This war has cost more than 3,000 American lives, thousands of seriously wounded, and hundreds of billions of dollars. We must have new leadership in the White House to ensure this never happens again.

Both Jefferson and Washington warned us about entangling ourselves in the affairs of other nations. Today, we have troops in 130 countries. We are spread so thin that we have too few troops defending America. And now, there are new calls for a draft of our young men and women.

We can continue to fund and fight no-win police actions around the globe, or we can refocus on securing America and bring the troops home. No war should ever be fought without a declaration of war voted upon by the Congress, as required by the Constitution.

Under no circumstances should the U.S. again go to war as the result of a resolution that comes from an unelected, foreign body, such as the United Nations.

Too often we give foreign aid and intervene on behalf of governments that are despised. Then, we become despised. Too often we have supported those who turn on us, like the Kosovars who aid Islamic terrorists, or the Afghan jihadists themselves, and their friend Osama bin Laden. We armed and trained them, and now we’re paying the price.

At the same time, we must not isolate ourselves. The generosity of the American people has been felt around the globe. Many have thanked God for it, in many languages. Let us have a strong America, conducting open trade, travel, communication, and diplomacy with other nations."


Taxes: Ron Paul wants to get rid of the income tax. Do you know what your income taxes are even spent on? Listen to this: "100 percent of what is collected is absorbed solely by interest on the Federal debt and by Federal Government contributions to transfer payments. In other words, all individual income tax revenues are gone before one nickel is spent on the services which taxpayers expect from their Government”(Reagan Grace Commission). Furthermore, the amount our government spending has increased in the last seven years exceeds the entire amount of money collected by the IRS. Cut back to what we were just seven years ago and we'd have no need for the income tax. Ron Paul says:

"Lower taxes allow more spending, saving, and investing which helps the economy — that means all of us.

Real conservatives have always supported low taxes and low spending.

But today, too many politicians and lobbyists are spending America into ruin. We are nine trillion dollars in debt as a nation. Our mounting government debt endangers the financial future of our children and grandchildren. If we don’t cut spending now, higher taxes and economic disaster will be in their future — and yours.

In addition, the Federal Reserve, our central bank, fosters runaway debt by increasing the money supply — making each dollar in your pocket worth less. The Fed is a private bank run by unelected officials who are not required to be open or accountable to “we the people.”

Worse, our economy and our very independence as a nation is increasingly in the hands of foreign governments such as China and Saudi Arabia, because their central banks also finance our runaway spending.

We cannot continue to allow private banks, wasteful agencies, lobbyists, corporations on welfare, and governments collecting foreign aid to dictate the size of our ballooning budget. We need a new method to prioritize our spending. It’s called the Constitution of the United States."


Social Security: Excessive government spending has created a crisis in Social Security. The proposed solutions, ranging from lower benefits, to higher taxes, to increasing the age of eligibility are NOT solutions. Ron Paul believes that young people should be able to opt out of Social Security. He says:

"Our nation’s promise to its seniors, once considered a sacred trust, has become little more than a tool for politicians to scare retirees while robbing them of their promised benefits. Today, the Social Security system is broke and broken.

Those in the system are seeing their benefits dwindle due to higher taxes, increasing inflation, and irresponsible public spending. ...

We must also address the desire of younger workers to save and invest on their own. We should cut payroll taxes and give workers the opportunity to seek better returns in the private market.

Excessive government spending has created the insolvency crisis in Social Security. We must significantly reduce spending so that our nation can keep its promise to our seniors."


Education: Ron Paul is for abolishing the Federal Department of Education. As one Paul supporter commented, “You do realize the Department of Education’s only role is telling state run schools what they should have on their curriculum?" This is from my brother Nate:

"People were educated better than they are today before federal management and even way back at the time of the founding fathers. People forget that elimination of the department of education was one of the rallying cries of the republicans up to just a few years ago.

You need to remember that primarily Ron Paul is working to get rid of FEDERAL management of things. Why have self-interested lobbyists and corrupt congressmen determine what will be done with your money or what will be taught in schools? The department of education is a joke when they give us things like “No Child Left Behind.”

The states could do things INFINITELY better than the federal government. Even better, a prosperous, unopressed middle class would produce services far better than state or federal government. Eventually, people will wake up and realize that there are far better ways than having federal involvement. As I’ve said before, the more complex an issue the more it should be decentralized and locally dealt with."


And from Dr. Paul:

"The federal government does not own our children. Yet we act as if it does by letting it decide when, how, and what our children will learn. We have turned their futures over to lobbyists and bureaucrats.

I support giving educational control back to parents, who know their children better than any politician in D.C. ever will.

The federal government has no constitutional authority to fund or control schools. I want to abolish the unconstitutional, wasteful Department of Education and return its functions to the states. By removing the federal subsidies that inflate costs, schools can be funded by local taxes, and parents and teachers can directly decide how best to allocate the resources."

Dr. Paul's career in politics was brought on by his interest in economics. On August 15, 1971, President Nixon called for the U.S. dollar's complete departure from the gold standard. That decision led Ron Paul into politics. He recalls, "After that day, all money would be political money rather than money of real value. I was astounded."

Since then, Ron Paul has served 10 congressional terms in the House of Representatives. He uses the Constitution as a guide as to how to vote. He makes it a point of never voting for a bill unless the proposed measure is expressly authorized in the Constitution. As a result, this has earned him the nickname, "Dr. No."

All of the other Republican candidates are essentially the same. I support Ron Paul because he is the only presidential candidate who is committed to bringing our country back to what it was intended to be.