Ron Paul
Posted by Joshua Claybourn on 11 May 2007 | 16 responses
Andrew Sullivan on “Taking Ron Paul Seriously“
The condescension to and mockery of the sole Republican candidate who seems to care about individual liberty has begun to tick me off. Chris Matthews can be heard groaning “Oh, God,” after Paul spoke of the “original intent” of the Founders with respect to the Constitution. And in the YouTube clip below, Rudy Giuliani actually seems to be guffawing after Paul’s defense of habeas corpus. I’m glad Paul’s supporters are fighting back on the web. He deserves more respect than he has gotten thus far, not least because compared to the pandering of his competitors, Paul actually seems to believe what he says. And what he says has more to do with conservatism than the crap the rest of them are peddling.
Props to Sullivan for pointing out that within the Republican Party, Dr. Ron Paul stands alone in his defense of our liberties.
“He deserves more respect than he has gotten thus far, not least because compared to the pandering of his competitors, Paul actually seems to believe what he says”
Meh. Sullivan wouldn’t say that about Sam Brownback, who’s just as honest about what he believes, because Brownback is a “Christianist.”
Sullivan and Paul are right about habeas corpus though, and Giuliani’s glibness about it is another strike against him.
I think Sully’s fondness for Ron Paul rests strongly with the congressman’s position on the Iraq War.
Paul got at least one thing wrong: that Congress “transferred” its authority to declare war to the President. The war was declared in 1991; when a ceasefire agreement is broken, a state of war exists once again.
Watching the video clip in Sullivan’s post, I am stunned at Paul’s remarks on getting rid of the IRS. On the question of the IRS his immediate response is that the income tax’s existence makes reckless interventionist foreign policy more affordable and thus easier. Why does he stop there? Why didn’t he take the opportunity to bash out-of-control domestic programs, which eat up way much more budget than defense, and which represent a huge libertarian bete noir? I suspect he senses the presence of a third rail.
I’ve met Ron Paul a few times, and my general impression was that he was a bit too eccentric for any serious political office (outside of his House seat). However, Alan, rest assured Paul opposes domestic spending as much as he does war spending. To give the guy his due, he is the only member of Congress dedicated to Davy Crockett style originalism. If you see a “no” vote in the House among 434 “yes” votes, you can bet the “no” is Paul. I do respect his integrity, even if I think he would be a poor choice for President.
The war was declared in 1991;
What? No it wasn’t. The Persian Gulf war was never a declared war, it was a police action, justified by the Carter Doctrine.
when a ceasefire agreement is broken
The ceasefire was negotiated by the United Nations, not the United States.
Why didn’t he take the opportunity to bash out-of-control domestic programs, which eat up way much more budget than defense
Military spending is by far the largest portion of the federal budget (32%) and followed by service on the debt (18%). What “out of control” social programs are you talking about?
Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and other wealth redistribution programs.
http://www.neolibertarian.net/articles/cc_20060215.aspx
Yes, I know Paul is against those programs. But he doesn’t have the guts to say it when presented a golden opportunity. Probably because he knows it will lose him votes - too many people rely on those programs as “income” (especially the bureaucrats who work for the relevant agencies).
Medicare and Social Security don’t “eat up” any of the budget, because they’re not even paid for out of the budget, because they’re not part of the budget. They’re paid for out of FICA.
And FICA runs a surplus.
To say that certain parts of the budget are off-budget because for now (until the majority of Boomers hit 65) non-FICA revenues aren’t paying for them is accounting sleight-of-hand.
Anyway, even by your numbers domestic spending (which is responsible for the majority of that interest expense) is still a huge portion of the budget, and you’d think Paul woudl have something to say about an issue that’s a libertarian high priority.
The point is, which you evidently can’t understand, that we could stop collecting FICA taxes tomorrow, and stop paying medicare and social security, and it wouldn’t change the budget deficit by one single penny.
The deficit is in federal on-budget spending, of which military expenditures and debt service constitute over 50%, and of which your bete noire “domestic programs,” by which I assume you mean social services and not things like the justice system, or interstate commerce, are a fraction.
Greg, the simplest and most correct response that you could have made early on would have been to point out that the largest social programs are not funded by the income tax at all, and that the income tax consequently could not be making that social spending easier. You seem to be making this point indirectly anyway, and it would have been more relevant of a response to Alan K. Henderson’s second comment from May 12 (which also does not concern the deficit) if it had been made directly. The on-budget/off-budget point that you have been trying to make just invites us to get philosophical in discussing what a budget is. Even though certain large spending items on the federal level are treated differently and are not considered a part of the budget, they are still a part of federal spending, and Congress still has the power to make adjustments to the tax or the expenditure to get the outcome it wants. If Alan K. Henderson’s second comment from May 12 was using the word “budget” in place of “federal spending” to make a point about excessive spending, I think that use of the term was reasonable.
You are correct that I should have simply pointed out that the income tax does not fund medicare or OASDI (Social Security) and I regretted not making that, simple, point as soon as I hit the post button.
But I disagree that the distinction between “on budget” and “off budget” is mere sophistry for exactly the reason you mention: there is an entirely separate tax, from the income tax, that funds Medicare/OASDI — FICA.
Henderson would have us believe that the budget deficit, that is the deficit between what is collected in “income taxes” and what the federal government spends is largely or entirely due to Medicare/Social Security.
Which just isn’t true. Because, as you point out, Social Security isn’t paid for from the income tax.
Assume we decided to end Medicare and OASDI tomorrow. We’d, morally, have to stop collecting FICA then as well, unless Henderson is suggesting that we simply stop Medicare/OASDI payments but still continue to collect FICA — presumably applying that (massive) revenue stream to “on-budget” items.
That would pretty much take care of the deficit, sure. But I bet people would be pretty ticked off to be paying “social security” taxes while not a single person in the country got social security benefits.
The deficit, and the resulting debt, are an on-budget phenomena. They have nothing to do with Medicare or Social Security and, as I tried to point out, if FICA and the entire social security apparatus were ended tomorrow, the budget deficit wouldn’t change by a penny.
We would still be paying more than 50 cents of every income tax dollar on the military and service on the national debt.
Alan’s third bete noire, medicade, is on-budget. However, at a “mere” $200 million a year, it’s less than ten cents of every income tax dollar.
When it comes to budget-cutting, the first officially-on-budget item that comes to mind is the Department of Education. The agency adds nothing to the value of education, and it constitutes Fed overreach.
Done. The entire Department of Education is gone, and you’ve cut the federal budget by 4%.
Also gone are student loans for college, special education, student aid for disadvantaged americans, grants to disadvantaged schools, and other things that add nothing to the value of education.
What’s not gone is, ohh, the Iraq war for whom the money you saved by eliminating the Department of Education will fund for eight months out of every year.
I don’t think it’s good that Ron Paul is against Social Security and Medicare/Medicade cause theres always people out there that just can’t work or can’t take a job, or can’t take someone yelling at you, or someone thats needs to improve their relationship/marriage, or a daddy that needs to stay home more so their kids don’t hate their dad in the future.
Ron Paul you need to be for less work, more can be stay at home dads and moms cause I hate it when parents have to work and use a babysitter.
Children need their parents until they are old enough to fly, like example the birds.
We Need Social Security and Unemployment.