Channel: C-SPAN
Date: 3/10/2009
Transcript:
Ron Paul: Thank you, Madame Speaker. I would like to address the subject of earmarks today. I think there is a lot of misunderstanding here among the members about exactly what it means to vote against an earmark. It’s very popular today to condemn earmarks and even hold up legislation because of this.
The truth is that if you removed all the earmarks from the budget you would remove 1% of the budget. So there’s not a lot of savings. But, even if you voted against all the earmarks, actually, you don’t even save the 1% because you don’t save any money. What is done is those earmarks are removed and some of them are very wasteful and unnecessary, but that money then goes to the executive branch.
So, in many ways what we are doing here in the Congress is reneging on our responsibilities. Because it is the responsibility of the Congress to earmark. That’s our job. We’re supposed to tell the people how we’re spending the money. Not to just deliver it in the lump sum to the executive branch and let them deal with it. And then it’s dealt with behind the scenes. Actually, if you voted against all the earmarks there would be less transparency. Earmarks really allow transparency and we know exactly where the money is being spent.
You know, the big issue is the spending. If you don’t like the spending, vote against the bill. But the principle of earmarking is something that we have to think about because we’re just further undermining the responsibilities that we have here in the Congress. And if we want to get things under control it won’t be because we vote against an earmark and make a big deal of attacking earmarks because it doesn’t address the subject.
In reality what we need are more earmarks. Just think of the 350 billion dollars that we recently appropriated and gave to the Treasury Department. Now everybody is running around and saying, “We don’t know where the money went, we just gave it to them in a lump sum”. We should have earmarked everything. It should have been designated where the money is going. So instead of too many earmarks we don’t have enough earmarks. Transparency is the only way we can get to the bottom of this and if you make everything earmarked it would be much better.
The definition of an earmark is very, very confusing. If you would vote to support the embassy in Baghdad which came up to nearly a billion dollars, that’s not called an earmark. But if you have an earmark for a highway or a building here in the United States, that is called an earmark. But if you vote for a weapons system, it would support and help a district and that’s not considered an earmark. When people are yelling and screaming about getting rid of earmarks, they’re not talking about getting rid of weapons systems or building buildings and bridges and highways in foreign countries. They only talk about [earmarks] when it is designated that certain money will be spent a certain way in this country.
And, ultimately, where we really need some supervision and some earmarks are the trillions of dollars spent by the Federal Reserve. They get to create their money out of thin air and spend it. They have no responsibility to tell us anything. Under the law they are excluded from telling us where and what they do. So we neglect telling the Treasury how to spend TARP money and then we complain about how they do it.
But just think literally: the Treasury is miniscule compared to what the Federal Reserve does. The Treasury gets hundreds of billions, which is huge, of course, and then we neglect to talk about the Federal Reserve where they are creating money out of thin air and supporting all their friends and taking care of certain banks and certain corporations. And this, to me, has to be addressed.
I’ve introduced a bill, and it’s called H.R. 1207, and this bill would remove the restriction on us to find out what the Federal Reserve is doing. Today, the Federal Reserve under the law is not required to tell us anything. So, all my bill does is remove this restriction and say, “Look, the Federal Reserve, you have a lot of power, you have too much power, you’re spending a lot of, you’re taking care of people that we have no idea what you’re doing, we in the Congress have a responsibility to know exactly what you are doing”.
This bill, H.R. 1207 will allow us, for once-and-for-all, to have some supervision of the Federal Reserve. They’re exempt from telling us anything and they have stiffed us already. There have been lawsuits filed over the Freedom of Information Act. Believe me, there’re not going to work because the law protects the Federal Reserve. The Constitution doesn’t protect the Federal Reserve, the Constitution protects the people and allows them to know exactly what is going on. We should enforce the Constitution. We should not enforce these laws that protect a secret bank that gets to create this money out of thin air.
So the sooner we in the Congress wake up to our responsibilities, understand what earmarks are all about, and understand why we need a lot more earmarks, then we will come to our senses. We might then have a more sensible monetary and banking system instead of the system that has brought us to this calamity. So the sooner we realize that, I think it will be better for the taxpayer.
Madame Speaker: Thank you, the gentleman’s time has expired.
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[...] Ron Paul on Earmarks: here, here, here. and Eric Phillips here. FREE [...]
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[...] Earmarks really allow transparency and we know exactly where the money is being spent." Ron Paul on Earmarks | Ron Paul .com We truly have reached the point where virtually everything virtually any member of congress or the [...]
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[...] some of them are very wasteful and unnecessary, but that money then goes to the executive branch. Ron Paul on Earmarks | Ron Paul .com __________________ The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral [...]
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[...] McConnell, use to curry favor with voters back home” – this is a phony issue. As Ron Paul has correctly pointed out, earmarks merely mean that money goes to local projects instead of into a general nationalized fund [...]
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[...] is the difference between earmark spending and “regular” government spending? Speaking on the floor of the House in March 2009, Ron Paul, the libertarian member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas and Republican [...]
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[...] Ron Paul on Earmarks [...]
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Ron Paul’s rationalizing is so unconvincing. He has shredded all credibility on this issue. If you still follow him, you are a midless cult member. Period.
Well, I already knew you were mindless cult members.
“Oh no, no! But you misunderstand!” I understand perfectly well. No amount of spinning is going to explain this away. Ron Paul is the pork king of Houston and the pork king of the GOP.
And he’s a fraud to boot. Too bad he couldn’t have figured out an obscure rationalization to fund the troops in Iraq.
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Another ad hominem. Yawn. Your comment made no sense compared to what was well stated above. Looks like someone needs to read up a bit more about Ron Paul before condemning him and the people who support him.
Have an awesome day!
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Actually, Ben Duffy, it looks as if you’re in fact the one who is “a midless cult member.” If you actually bothered to look up the facts you’d see that what he’s saying is very true and that the problems tend to occur when the money is not earmarked.
I can’t help but notice how you’re doing a lot of name calling but provide no evidence. Tell me, how is Ron Paul the pork king? From everything I’ve seen, he is the most unworthy person of that title in the entire congress. He votes against wasteful spending so much he’s been given the name “Dr. No.”
Ron Paul runs his congressional office in a frugal manner, he was able to return more than $100,000 from his allotted office budget to the Treasury this year. How often does that happen!?!?!?
I know you’re most likely just trolling but whatever.
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Hey Ben,
Care to provide any concrete evidence for your accusations?
Your accusation of Fraud? Back it up with facts/evidence.
Pork King of Houston? Back it up with facts/evidence. Care to base your argument on facts instead of strawman arguments and ad hominem attacks?
If not then your sir are the mindless cult member unwilling to delve into studying the facts.
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Dr. Paul is being criticized on this point because he is “looking behind the curtain” again. He is exposing the media and many of his associates in Congress for the long used device of pointing out the splinter in the eye of one person while ignoring the beam in their own. “Representative X wants a new park, but I have devoted my energies to solving the nation’s crisis in healthcare!”
It is never comfortable challenging “conventional wisdom”. Cavuto sure choked on it yesterday. He surely must have seen the point, but did not like the fact that the media’s hypocrisy was being attacked by logical argument. That is most uncomfortable to pundits and talking heads.
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