Ron Paul: There Are No “Cuts”
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Tagged: Ron Paul’s Interviews
Ron Paul on Face the Nation
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One-Hour Interview with Ron Paul
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Ron Paul: Raising Taxes On Productive Businesses Would Make Our Problems Worse
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Ron Paul On The Jerry Doyle Show
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. If you notice any errors please report them using the “Help improve this post” link at the bottom of this post.
Jerry Doyle: Twelve term congressman representing Texas’s 14th party and, if anything, he has been persistent, consistent, and now he’s a top-tier candidate, which I guess makes him just annoying to many in the permanent ruling class, he just won’t go away. Congressman Paul, it’s good to speak with you again.
Ron Paul: Thank you, Jerry, it’s good to be with you.
Jerry Doyle: I have watched with some great joy, and others with consternation, that you continue to gain traction. You’re moving into the top-tier, you’re continuing to raise a lot of money, and a lot of people are saying, “Okay, that would never happen”, but now that has happened, now you’ve reached this political class ceiling. ’19%, never to go any further, you’ve absolutely peaked’: and I would have to say that they’re probably going to have to eat those words too.
Ron Paul: Well, we’re optimistic and the movement here in the last few months or two has been a reflection of what we’ve been doing, because we’ve been spending a lot of time in Iowa and New Hampshire and as well as Nevada. But this reflection of the polls today was a reflection of what we sort of knew. When they do these national polls, they’re not a reflection of exactly what’s happening on those probable votes and the organization that we have. So I feel pretty good about the way things are going.
Ron Paul: The Fed gained so much power to create money at will, and there was no auditing, no oversight from the Congress, which there should be. But as long as things seem to be rocking along okay and the credit was good in the country and the recessions weren’t severe, they just assumed, “Forget about it”. But now they’ve been forced to think about it, and that’s why the whole world has changed since 2008. Matter of fact, it was a major transition from 2007 to 2008 because we did get a lot of attention in 2007 about the
Jerry Doyle: I look at leverage ratios as an indication of where we’re going going forward. The consumer’s leverage ratio, the debt-to equity, debt-to-income; we’re still probably 5 to 7 years away from the consumers unwinding their debt to help to spur on job creation through the consumption of goods and services. Corporations were leveraged about 30-to-1, the Fed, in its latest analysis, 51-to-1 with 58 billion dollars of reserves pledged against 2.7 trillion dollars of push button money. If there’s a 2% drop in the underlying securities, the Velvet Elvises that they’ve put as collateral for this printing of this money, the Fed is technically wiped out. Now, I would have to think that, based upon the collapse of Lehman, 4 elected governments collapsing over in Europe, 2 in the last week (Greece and Italy), that there would be more people on Capitol Hill, like yourself, that read the tea leaves for what they are, and say, “We have to do something”, but yet this dirty dozen debt super-committee doesn’t seem to be able to understand the ramifications of what has happened, is happening, and could happen to us if we don’t get serious.
Ron Paul: Yea, and you know, if it were a company, I think we could short it and it would probably be pretty safe, because I think you’re right, it can’t operate this way. And even now, we might not have to wait very long because there’s no real solvency to it. Because this ratio that they have, they keep it going only because the world still has a bit of trust in the dollar, we’re using the dollar to bail out everybody. Bernanke said the other day that he stands behind, he’s ready to act if Europe gets into any more trouble. Well, how many people can you bail out with the dollar that’s been downgraded by the rating agencies. So there’s a trust in the dollar that’s undeserved and one of these days the whole country, the world, is going to wake up and say that everybody is going to get out of the currency. Right now they’re still willing to put a little bit of confidence in the dollar, but it cannot last, it’s just impossible.
Jerry Doyle: And there seem to be some fellow Republican candidates of yours that are starting to put some trust in some of the things that you’ve said that they’re now coming around to. Rick Perry got a standing O when he was talking about how we have to reduce all our foreign monies to zero, and then start taking a look at who we’re allocating those resources to, and are we getting a return on our investment. Auditing the Fed was echoed by Newt Gingrich, foreign policy issues are being seconded by Mitt Romney, Rick Perry and others. And it seems like a lot of the other Republicans up there are coming around to a lot of the positions that you’ve consistently had over time. Is this just a forced epiphany on their part because they’re coming face to face with this economic reality?
Ron Paul: No, I think what they were doing was purely a political statement, because they know it’s popular and they talked about zeroing out and then working back on the foreign aid. Well, foreign aid is very bad, I don’t vote for any of it, I don’t believe any of it, but it’s rather minor compared to the overseas expenditure involved in our empire that we operate: being in 130 countries and 900 bases and being in these wars, that’s where the big money is, they’re not talking about that. On the same evening when they said let’s cut our foreign aid, they were talking about expanding our militarism around the world and talking about taking on Iran. Just this week nobody hardly said a word, Obama said, “We got to put troops in Australia”. I mean, what are we needing troops in Australia for? We can’t even afford to feed our people back home and provide jobs, and over there we are shipping more troops to Australia and looking for provoking something with China? That makes no sense, they’re not talking about that, they’re talking about the old fashioned foreign aid and they didn’t say “We’ll stop it”, they said “We’ll reassess it all, and after we reassess it, we’ll give them that portion that we think they deserve”.
Jerry Doyle: With regard to our stationing military marines and navy down in Australia in Darwin, which is the Pearl Harbor of Australia because more bombs landed on Darwin than on Pearl Harbor in World War II. But I went through a speech that Hillary Clinton gave as a precursor to Obama’s visit, and she gave this speech and I went through the speech and I was highlighting all the instances where they were talking about promoting balance and economic growth, where we have to look at increased investment, diplomatic, economic, strategic. We have to look at economic architecture, economic issues that will be front and center in our relationships in the region. It seems to me, Congressman, that we’re now sending the military down to ‘guard the mall’, so to speak, which would be to guard the economic interests of the United States, of businesses in that region, and to a certain degree, rightly so. But it seems we’re again making military commitments based upon economic interests, not strategic military decisions.
Ron Paul: No. I think you’ve said it well, and a lot of times, any place where our investments go, the military follows, and they’re sort of like they’re a private police force. But economically speaking, we encourage this. We complain so much about our jobs going overseas, but we have this agency called the “Overseas Private Investment Corporation”, which means if you or I had a business and we went over, let’s say we did go to Australia, and we start a business over there. If for political reasons or military reasons we get into trouble, the tax payers insure it, so we literally subsidize the sending out of businesses to these other countries. And if it were the market, we wouldn’t want to go into a country where we may get into political trouble. But if we go into a country and we get into political trouble and one of our businesses gets into trouble, they actually have insurance backed up by the American tax payer. But there is a relationship between our business people and our military around the world, and it incorporates a lot of activity by our CIA agents as well.
Jerry Doyle: Congressman Ron Paul is our guest, RonPaul2012.com is his website. With regard to what our military strategies and policies would be going forward in light of the proposed cuts that are going to come out with the sequesters from the super-committee, I think a lot of people have the misconception that you’re soft on the military when in actuality you have more contributions from military personnel than all the other candidates, including the President, combined, if I have that correct. But yours is more of a strategic use of the military rather than a boots-on-the-ground global deployment, do I have that correct?
Ron Paul: Yea, and what I want is to restrict our military to the defense of our country, not to be the policeman of the world. Matter of fact, George Bush had a pretty good foreign policy in his campaign in the year 2000. He said we shouldn’t have an arrogant foreign policy, or they’ll resent us. We should have a humble foreign policy, we shouldn’t be the policeman of the world and we shouldn’t be in nation building; and that’s pretty good stuff, but look at what’s happened. And even Obama in the campaign pretended that he would be more likely the peace candidate. But when they get in, they don’t follow up on that. Here Obama is going into Libya without even consultation with the Congress, and it’s just so out of control, and that’s not what the military was meant to be. Besides, it contributes to this bankruptcy of our country. 4 trillion dollars that we have spent were added to our debt in these last 10 years. And we don’t want to think about the fact that … and fortunately we didn’t have to fight the soviets, but the soviets collapsed for economic reasons and, ironically, fighting a war in Afghanistan that they were losing. So it just bewildered me to think that people are just quietly going along and they listen to this and the other candidates think, “This is how I’m going to get elected, the more militant I can be and the stronger I am and the more willingness I show to go and start another war, the more likely I am to get elected”. That makes no sense at all.
Jerry Doyle: Absolutely, last question. Congressman Ron Paul is with us, www.RonPaul2012.com is the website. With regards to what we’re seeing in this deadline – I call them ‘the dirty dozen’ on the super-committee, Congressman, because they’ve gotten 520 million dollars in campaign contributions since 1990, I would have to think that that’s going to influence some of the decisions that they come up with. It doesn’t look like they’re going to meet the deadline, they have a 48 hour deadline before the Wednesday drop-dead date, so that makes it Monday. Here we are on Thursday, and it seems that yet once again, they’re going to kick this can down the road, put it back into congressional committee, let them do the job that they didn’t do that caused the super-committee to be created in the first place. How does this end, I mean, when does this end, when do we just say, “Stop spending”, and we start to get real about what our true economic problems are?
Ron Paul: Well, they’re not going to come up with any real cuts, and even if they did what they were asked to do, and they’re only cutting these proposed increases, I think the end is going to come if we don’t have new people and a new president that’s willing to cut a trillion dollars in the first year. It’s going to end with a financial crisis that will make 2008 look like a picnic. It will be much, much worse, it will be the collapse of the whole financial systems, and we’re going to see a rush from paper currencies because none of them are backed with anything. And you’re going to see an explosion of not only interest rates, but also prices, and then we will be forced into having monetary reform.
Jerry Doyle: Well, let’s hope that cooler heads prevail, and while we still have the time to do something to head it off at the pass that we at least make steps in those directions. I know your direction is upward, punching through the 19%, and defying all those who say Ron Paul has peaked, I think there are higher elevations for you to climb to, sir. Congressman Paul, continue your success, thanks for taking time to be with us on the program, I know our listeners appreciate it.
Ron Paul: Thank you, Jerry.
Radio Voice: The Jerry Doyle show.
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Ron Paul: Raising Taxes On Productive Businesses Would Make Our Problems Worse
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. If you notice any errors please report them using the “Help improve this post” link at the bottom of this post.
Jack Heath: Congressman Ron Paul, how are you, sir?
Ron Paul: I’m good, Jack, thanks for having me on.
Jack Heath: Well, I don’t know where you are right now in the national campaign and doing your day job, but thanks for joining us. Congressman, we’re approaching the holidays, and in the course of this election we’re less than 2 months away from the New Hampshire primary, and it still seems that jobs in this economy is the No. 1 story. I think most people don’t understand what the super-committee in Washington is, they know they’re supposed to be cutting, but they’re not optimistic that anything is really going to come out of this. Can you put this in context for us as a member of Congress: what the super-committee is, do you think they’re going to achieve the cuts that they’re supposed to achieve, where is this at, Congressman?
Ron Paul: I don’t think they’re getting anywhere at all, I don’t think much good will come of it, because it shouldn’t have ever been formed. You know, a couple of months ago when they were trying to raise the national debt limit, they ran into an impasse, so they sort of said, “Well, let’s set up this committee and these 12 members will make a proposal and we’ll have an Up and Down Vote in the Congress. Of course, that whole process is unconstitutional. But the problem is the Congress as well as this committee are unwilling to admit the country is bankrupt, we’ve spent way beyond our means and that it’s much more serious than they believe and that we ought to cut spending significantly and change our way of living, our government is just too big and does more things than it should. But they won’t touch that, therefore, I think they’re just going to keep doing this. So I don’t expect anything really of value to come out of this committee, nor out of Congress, in the near future because of their unwillingness to really consider cuts. In contrast to that, my proposal was that if we’re serious, we would cut a trillion dollars out of the budget and it would have to be this year, I mean, the first year, the year of the budget. Because if not, if you cut a trillion dollars over the next 10 years on proposed increases, it’s nothing, it won’t reassure the markets.
Ron Paul: No, they’re not willing to accept it because what they’re afraid of is that they’ll have their benefits cut. But I think I’d qualify that a little bit. There are a lot that are in that category, but there are a lot who are catching on and they’re sick and tired of paying for it. But the people in Washington I don’t think have quite gotten this message. We’ve gone through probably 70 or 80 years, especially since the depression, during which millions of Americans have been taught economics the wrong way, they were taught that deficits really aren’t bad, both conservatives and liberals have been taught that.
Jack Heath: You’re right, I remember in my macro economics class there was talk about that sometimes deficits aren’t such a bad thing.
Ron Paul: Yea, matter of fact, the Keynesian Liberals argue that the whole problem we’re facing today is a lack of spending, and the people should spend more money although they’re maxed out on their credit cards. And students can’t even get a job and we have students coming out of college owing a trillion dollars. But then they say, “Well, if they can’t do it, then the government has to do it”, so they do exactly the opposite of what a free market economist says we should do: we should back off, live within our means, provide an environment where businesses will come back, and shrink the deficit. So we’re in a conflict but we’re in a dead end because continuing to spend is going to just make things much worse. And everything depends on the dollar, whether it’s Europe or Greece or everybody and every state. We have so far been able to print the money when we needed it, and it’s still being done, and there’s still a bit of trust in the dollar because people will still use our dollars. But the debt is so huge, that there is no way that this can happen. And our credit was downgraded once, it’s getting ready to be downgraded again, and these deficits have just exploded, they’re going up exponentially. And if the people in Washington knew how serious this was, they would cut spending, but so far we’re not very close to it.
Jack Heath: Congressman, President Obama is visiting New Hampshire next Wednesday, he’s going to talk about his jobs bill. I thought that was dead when the Senate has not even passed it and they’re led by Harry Reid. But here’s my question: no doubt he’s going to come to New Hampshire and he’s going to say that you can’t deal with this deficit without not only dealing with the deficit and cutting, but raising revenue, which is code for raising taxes. And he’s going to make his case, as he’s done pretty much from day one, that the wealthiest are not paying their fair share. And he’ll define that – even though he’ll talk about Warren Buffett and I don’t want to hear that anymore personally – he’ll define that as in people in New Hampshire, or he won’t say this, but anyone making over $200,000 or a couple making $250,000 on their Gross Adjusted Income needs to pay more. He says corporations aren’t paying their fair share, even though we’re paying 35% corporate tax. My point is, he’s going to say the rich and the wealthy and better-off people aren’t paying enough. Can our deficit crisis be settled without raising taxes, in your opinion?
Ron Paul: Well, it better be, because if you just raise taxes, it makes our problem worse because you chase more businesses overseas and you never get the revenues that you think you’re going to get. So, that would be devastating. But one thing that we could look at …
Jack Heath: So the President is wrong in your opinion?
Ron Paul: Absolutely. But there’s one thing, I would qualify on this as a reflection of what’s going on on Wall Street, the Occupy Wall Street. When there are rich people out there that are being resented when they got it off the tax payers, when they got bailed out, and they get special contracts, yea, that’s the kind of stuff. You don’t just raise taxes on them, you just deny them access to the treasury, you deny easy credit for them, you don’t bail them out. And I think that type of resentment is justified, but that isn’t raising taxes on the rich. Unfortunately, because people don’t quite understand this and they see some people benefiting unfairly and they say, “Oh, they’re benefiting unfairly, let’s raise taxes on the rich”. But then you punish the people who are productive. So I think we have to have a better attitude and a better understanding of what the government’s role should be, and it certainly shouldn’t be bailing out everybody and serving the special interests.
Jack Heath: Okay, so before I let you go, Congressman Ron Paul you’re in New Hampshire today, I really like having you on. Okay, something’s wrong with this picture, Congressman, I had Governor Perry on yesterday and I talked about national media and his race. There’s something wrong with this picture: the national media, the talking heads on cable TV at night, will gloss right over Ron Paul and they’ll talk about Mitt Romney and they’ll talk about Newt Gingrich. And yet, when you turn around, Ron Paul is rising in the polls, Newt Gingrich is rising in the polls. You’re now in second place in the first in the nation presidential primary, and the latest I think was Bloomberg News poll. Mitt Romney, yes he has a commanding lead, but all these other candidates: Perry, Cain, Gingrich and so on, Hunstman, Santorum, Bachmann, it’s Ron Paul. Okay, so why do the national pundits kind of gloss over you as someone who could upset a lot of races here?
Ron Paul: I don’t know the answer, because they do it. It could be understood if they didn’t want me to be seen as a contender and they could deliberately do it, and a lot of people believe that is the case. But I don’t know for sure, because it’s their motivation. But I suspect that there are some things where I want to rock the boat pretty good, I want to change foreign policy, address the subject of the
Jack Heath: Okay, as we say goodbye, what did you do last week to Governor Perry of Texas? He just looked at you on that stage. Did you unnerve him and rattle him so much, you made him forget the third department he wanted to eliminate, energy?
Ron Paul: I wouldn’t claim that, but he was having a little trouble. He was talking about his three, and I said, “But you want five, not just three.” And then he did get a little … but it turned out I got a few laughs out of that afterwards, and he did too. He and I shared some laughs over it and now I guess that’s the best thing he could do. So it was interesting.
Jack Heath: Alright, thank you, Ron Paul, I look forward to having you again soon. Thank you, Ron Paul, live in New Hampshire today.
Ron Paul: Thank you.
Jack Heath: Alright, we’re going to switch gears, go live now to Washington Talk Radio.
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Frontrunner Ron Paul: They Won’t Be Able to Stop Us!
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. If you notice any errors please report them using the “Help improve this post” link at the bottom of this post.
Judge Napolitano: It’s a new low, Republicans have now joined Democrats in beating up on the most productive people in our society. Yes, you heard me correctly, Republicans are attacking millionaires; Jon Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen, Quincy Jones, Ted Turner, not for their political views, but for the way they get tax breaks. This, as super-committee Republicans waver on their fiscal conservative stance in favor of a tax hike. Here with insights is a man who will never compromise his fiscal conservatism, a quality that has him surging in polls. In a recent poll, Texan Republican Congressman Ron Paul is tied for first place with Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain. Will his hoards of devotes in the great state of Iowa propel him to victory in those caucuses in less than two months. Congressman Paul, it’s always a pleasure, welcome back to Freedom Watch.
Ron Paul: Thank you, Judge.
Judge Napolitano: Are you surprised that Republican senators are saying what they’re saying? I don’t expect you to jump on a particular senator, but Senator Coburn says, “We got to stop these rich people from taking advantage of loopholes that we have written”. And Senator Pat Toomey, who once had a reputation for being as faithful to the free market as you have when he was the President of the Club for Growth, now saying, “Well, on the super-committee we might accept $1.5 in cuts for every dollar in tax hikes”. Tax hikes? Where does he come up with that?
Ron Paul: It’s never worked before and it won’t work again. And the real confusion comes from the fact that there are some rich people who get benefits from government, they work with the
Ron Paul: It’s all a PR battle and it’s all a struggle for power, maintaining power, and not cleaning up the mess. The one problem that the conservatives is have, is they won’t accept the fact that maybe we spend too much money overseas, maybe our foreign policy needs to be adjusted, they will not contemplate that in any way. So they want to tinker around the edges and come up with tax gimmicks and not admit the truth. And on the other side, including many Republicans, they don’t want to touch any bailouts either, you know, the entitlement system. And that’s where our problem is, the American people are part of the problem because they’ve been taught to be dependent on government programs. So we as a country have to decide whether we want a government that’s going to police the world and take care of us from cradle to grave. And if we want it to happen, then we’re going to have total bankruptcy in this country, and we’ll end up with runaway
Judge Napolitano: If you were the President, what would you be pushing on the super-committee? Well, we wouldn’t have a super-committee if you were President, but if you were the President, what would you be urging the Congress to do right now in this present, unfortunate, unhappy recession in which we find ourselves?
Ron Paul: Quit lying to themselves and look at my proposal. I said in the first year, if our country gets serious, we can cut a trillion dollars out of it, and it would help us. And I used the example of after World War II, when we cut spending by 60% and we cut taxes by 30% and 10 million people came home, and guess what, the depression finally ended. So I would say we should look at that example and not this whole idea that the Keynesian argument is that we’re in a recession because there’s not enough spending. So government is supposed to spend, and people who have no credit left are supposed to go out and get a credit card and they’ll spend, and that’s how you end a recession: it’s a completely false idea.
Judge Napolitano: The first significant event in the Republican primary/caucus season is the Iowa caucuses, and you are now tied in the latest Bloomberg poll with Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain. Is the media going to start mentioning the fact that you’re up there in first place with them in this very significant poll, Congressman Paul?
Ron Paul: Well, probably not, I’m not expecting too much from them. But I’ll tell you what, the more they ignore me, the more attention we get, because they see it is so unfair. So if this continues, they won’t be able to stop us. And the one thing I’m pleased with in the poll, although we’re really tied with three other people, is the fact that when we get supporters, when supporters come in to our camp, they usually never leave. But if you look at the past six months, they come and go with the other candidates. So there’s reason for us to be very optimistic.
Judge Napolitano: Got it. Thanks for joining us, we’ll see you again soon.
Ron Paul: Thank you, Judge.
Judge Napolitano: Where did one hundred million of your tax dollars …
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Ron Paul on Obama’s “Elective Dictatorship”
Clarification: Ron Paul did not call Obama an “elected dictator”. That expression was just part of the headline we used to summarize Ron Paul’s
[...] Obama explicitly threatens to bypass Congress, thus aggregating the power to make and enforce laws in the executive. This clearly erodes the principles of separation of powers and checks and balances. It brings the modern presidency dangerously close to an elective dictatorship. [...]
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. If you notice any errors please report them using the “Help improve this post” link at the bottom of this post.
David Asman: Ron Paul is watching these results very closely, he’s trying to replace President Obama, and in fact has now said the President’s new spate of executive orders on the economy is effectively making him an elected dictator. He joins us now. I want to get to that comment in a moment, but what do you think of Ohioans rejecting Obama Care, essentially?
Ron Paul: Well, I think that’s good and that’s healthy, it’s just too bad we don’t apply that principle to about everything Washington does. ‘We’d like to opt out’, that’s what they’re saying, they don’t want to be pushed in. But when you think about how many other things that we’re pushed into, this is really minor. And the whole idea, though, is this doesn’t have the effect of law, so we have a long way to go. But I don’t like the use of force, I like volunteerism, that’s what a free society is supposed to be all about.
David Asman: Well, you like volunteerism, but you don’t see much of it coming from the White House. In fact, you called the President, recently, “An elected dictator”, what do you mean by that?
Ron Paul: Well, you know, a couple of weeks ago he announced Congress is too slow, they don’t move fast enough. He was very bold about it, he said, “I’m going to pass my legislation one piece at a time”. And about his stimulus package he said, “I’ll write and executive order every week”, I mean, that is arrogant, it is flaunting the constitution and the whole principles of how we’re supposed to operate. Even though these executive order have been around for a long time, and I’ve complained about them for a long time, but the idea that they can just do this and take away the legislative function and brag about it and Congress does nothing and the courts do nothing, is very, very bad.
Ron Paul: Well, if he writes these laws and he doesn’t do it the right way, he’s certainly verging in that direction. And you even qualified that when you read the quote; he’s verging on that, he’s moving in that direction, he’s dictatorial, is what he is. But this is what our government is all about. When Congress does get around to passing laws, they’re dictatorial too, everybody is telling the people what to do. This has been whole process for many, many decades, this is what the whole taxing system is about; dictating and dictatorial and telling people how to live their lives.
David Asman: Well, how would you change things?
Ron Paul: Well, you have to change it by changing people’s minds, but I think that’s what’s happening. I think this is why we have a Tea Party Movement going on and people are demonstrating because they’re sick and tired of what they’re being dictated to, just like the people in Iowa were tired of being dictated to; “You have to buy this insurance”. So the people’s attitudes are changing, the Congress has to change, we have to have a new president that maybe believes in the constitution to quit doing the things that are illegal. But this whole principle that the executive branch as well as the judicial branch can write law, has to be challenged. Because this is how we got into this mess, this is why government is too big and it has to be reversed.
David Asman: there is going to be a vote, apparently, on the Balanced Budget Amendment. I’m looking for ways to handcuff the people elected to office to prevent them from going to excess, is a Balanced Budget Amendment one way to do that?
Ron Paul: Oh, you have to be very, very cautious. I’m not a co-sponsor of any, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t vote for one. But the big thing is, what if they balance the budget by raising taxes. But you know how interested I am in monetary policy, it wouldn’t deal with the
David Asman: Congressman, in the course of your campaign, sometimes people in a crowded field, like the Republican field is right now, people on one side of an issue can push the candidates that have a better chance of winning in the other side. You sense any program on the part of somebody like Romney from catching on to some of your ideas?
Ron Paul: At the beginning he made a couple of comments about why we’ve been in Afghanistan for too long, and I thought that was healthy, but he sort of dropped away from that. He himself hasn’t said too much about the
David Asman: Well, if – and I know this is going against your better instincts – somebody like Romney becomes the nominee and if he actually becomes the President of the United States, you think he’ll just forget about the lip service that he might have been giving to some of your ideas once he’s president?
Ron Paul: Well, that’s the big question, because there are a bunch of politicians running and sometimes you run differently in the primary than you do in the general. So maybe he would say things and the other candidates might say things to appeal to the primary voters, and then what happens later on will be quite different. This is the one advantage people have when they look at what I do, because I say the same thing all the time and I’ve said it for a lot of years, so they wouldn’t have to worry about what I would do in a general election, or as a president.
David Asman: Well, there are these pledges on not raising taxes and such; maybe we should demand more pledges from candidates.
Ron Paul: Yea, one time I wrote an article called, “Legislative malpractice”. If you didn’t live up to your promises or obey the constitution, we ought to have the right to sue the politicians.
David Asman: Oh, I like that.
Ron Paul: That was tongue-in-cheek, because I guess our only alternative is impeaching people or not voting for them in the next go around. But just think if they had to face up to the obligation of following their promises and their pledges and their contract. In the private sector, you can be sued for breaking your promises and your contract, but the politicians get away with it, so maybe I’ll keep thinking about that idea if you liked it.
David Asman: They get away with murder, they always have and they probably always will. By the way, Herman Cain gave a press conference today, I’m sure you saw it or at least heard about it. Part of what he said went beyond the particular accusations made against him, which may or may not be frivolous. Let me just play a part of that and get you to respond.
Herman Cain: The machine to keep a businessman out of the White House is going to be relentless.
David Asman: What about that? Is there a machine, both Republican and Democratic, that is against people outsiders – I know you’ve been in Congress for a while, so you’re kind of an insider, but you have outside ideas. But he’s certainly an outsider. Is there a machine that is actively trying to prevent him from getting into office?
Ron Paul: I’d have to have him identify that and pinpoint it. But there are times I think all politicians tend to be a little bit paranoid about who’s out to get them. And even myself, I have to confess that there are times when I think, you know, why am I excluded here and why is this and why do we have a ton. But I see it more in philosophic terms, because I’m challenging the status quo philosophically: Keynesian economics, the
David Asman: No, but I like your point. If you’re getting awards from people inside the bellway, then you’re doing something wrong, right?
Ron Paul: Yea, I would think so.
David Asman: Ron Paul, great to see you, sir, thanks for coming in. Good luck on the campaign trail.
Ron Paul: Thank you.
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