Wayne Allyn Root interviews Ron Paul

Last Friday, 2008 Libertarian Vice-Presidential Candidate Wayne Allyn Root interviewed Ron Paul and Judge Andrew Napolitano on the Wayne Root Radio Show.

Show: Wayne Root Radio Show
Host: Wayne Allyn Root
Date: June 5, 2009

Transcript (starts at 6:48)

Wayne Allyn Root: All right. We’ve got Congressman Ron Paul on the phone. Ron Paul, are you there?

Ron Paul: I am here. Good to be with you.

Wayne Allyn Root: We seem to be talking every day now, Ron.

Ron Paul: Yeah, I know. Your listeners will get tired of me.

Wayne Allyn Root: All right, no one gets ever tired of you, not my listeners. I could never be tired of you. Just so I give a little introduction for the one or two people in the world who don’t know my hero, Ron Paul, Republican presidential candidate in 2008, a Libertarian presidential candidate, by the way, back in, I believe, it was in 1988. Is that right?

Ron Paul: That is correct.

Wayne Allyn Root: And a man that basically represented, I hope you’ll agree with me, the anti-establishment wing, the libertarian limited- government, pro-freedom, pro-free markets wing of the Republican Party and a life member, by the way, of the Libertarian Party. Is that all correct?

Ron Paul: That is correct.

Wayne Allyn Root: I got it right. It’s amazing.

Ron Paul: Yeah.

Wayne Allyn Root: And that could be the reason I like you so much. Hey, listen, you predicted the spending would lead to the deficits and the debt. You knew the bailouts were a bad idea. Was any of this constitutional, Ron?

Ron Paul: All the bailouts are all unconstitutional and all the things that they did to get us into this mess, and that was unconstitutional, too, and we have to realize that, and I’m always complaining that people don’t want to talk about the cause, they want to just talk about so-called solutions and it just goes on and on and they’re doing exactly the same thing: too much spending and too much borrowing and too much printing, too many regulations, that’s what got us here and so what are we doing? Exactly the same thing and it’s all unconstitutional.

The document is not all that complicated and if we would follow it, we could actually get out of our problems, too. But the political forces are such that as soon as you want to cut spending, there’s hollering and screaming and, “Oh, you don’t care about the poor people” and “What are we going to do around the world” and “We have all these obligations, the world would fall apart without us spending all this money.”

Wayne Allyn Root: Well, I guess, my question is what’s the solution? How do we get out of this mess especially with someone like Barack Obama as President who obviously cares nothing about the Constitution? He thinks empathy is more important than the Constitution, so what’s the solution, Dr. Paul?

Ron Paul: Well, the long-term solution is preparing a new generation that will eventually change policies, which will take a while and it’s very risky. But in the meantime, we have to try to hold the line, which is practically impossible here to hold back anything.

But take for instance the march to socialized medicine. I don’t think we’re going to slow down the Democrats. I think that is go on, but if we just could insert just a phrase or a clause that says, you know, you still have the right to opt out. You know, you have the right to opt out and pay for your own medical care and provide for it. But that’s the most difficult thing that we have today is just allowing it to happen.

In education it’s a total disaster, but we still do have the right to have a private school and home school and that is a blessing to us that we have that right. But long term, we have to raise up a generation who believes the Constitution should be followed, have respect for the rule of law, believe in sound money, believe we should have balanced budgets, you know, the whole process, but it’s going to be a real, tough struggle.

Wayne Allyn Root: You may not be aware, Ron, but my daughter who just turned 17, but a year ago, she was 16 years old, home schooled from the day she was born, when I got the Vice-Presidential nomination for the Libertarian Party in 2008, at the time I was running for President at the Libertarian convention, I chose my 16-year-old home schooled daughter to give my nomination speech on national TV on C-SPAN.

Ron Paul: Wow.

Wayne Allyn Root: She had never given a speech in her life. And she delivered a home run. It’s on Google. Anybody out there that wants to Google Dakota Root. The first thing that pops up is Presidential nominating speech for Wayne Root. Watch a 16-year-old deliver a speech like a 40-year-old political pro and then tell me that home schooling doesn’t work, and by the way, she right now is aiming at Harvard as her choice of school. So it gives you some idea, I think Dr. Paul.

The public schools in Las Vegas where I live are failing miserably. The kids who get out, only get out through the grade inflation. The amount of dropouts, record high. But the ones who get out and who go on to college, they need to take remedial math and reading and writing in order to take their freshman classes at college while my daughter was giving a nomination speech on national TV. Is that not a reflection of the failure of public schools in this country?

Ron Paul: It absolutely is and a lot of people have that perception and I did at one time, thinking, “Well, these kids are going to be missing a lot. They won’t know how to be socialized in the community and they are going to be at home”, but it turns out as actually as you described. These home schoolers have more confidence, not less confidence. They are more likely to be able to speak and ask questions. They come to my meetings and I can tell home schoolers because they feel very good and they’re very adult and they know how to handle themselves and they’re smart enough to ask decent questions, but it’s also a verification of this. Don’t you just love it when you see a home schooler win this national spelling bee or the arithmetic bee and it just goes to prove…

Wayne Allyn Root: Almost every year.

Ron Paul: It doesn’t mean that we have to outlaw public schools and it doesn’t mean that everybody goes to public schools. I happened to have gone through all public schools. But it also means that competition is good, we have to maintain that right and this principle that you can do that should be applied to everything that we’re doing now.

Wayne Allyn Root: Yeah, well, you know, listen, my new book is coming out in about a month. It’s called “The Conscience of a Libertarian: Empowering the Citizen Revolution with God, Guns, Gambling & Tax Cuts“, and like you I’m tax cut guy. Like you, I’m a pro-God, pro-prayer guy.

Sometimes that’s not what you think of when you think of libertarians, but, you know, I’m not against public schools. Just like you, I’m careful to say. I’m just for choice and I’m also for school vouchers on the state level because I don’t think the Federal government should be involved. But on the state level, I think they should take your tax money and give it to you and give you a choice of applying it where you think it’s best for your kids to get a good education. What’s wrong with that, Dr. Paul? I mean, why is choice only good when it comes to abortion to a liberal, but choice of your children’s future doesn’t seem to be of any importance on their list?

Ron Paul: Yeah. That’s a good point. The liberals talk about choice, but do they give us a choice on how we’re going to spend our money or do they give us a choice to own a weapon? No, they’re not really for choice, and of course, if they were really applying that properly, they would say, “Does a 7- or an 8-pound baby that’s not yet born, does it have a choice to live or not?” So this whole idea about choice is sort of a nonsense, though.

Wayne Allyn Root: Are you a fan… I’m not quite sure of your view. I know you’re for school choice, obviously. But if education was moved away from the Federal government, which I know you’ll agree with me on, moved to the state and local level, are you a voucher person?

Ron Paul: Not enthusiastic, but I would permit them and they’d be legal. I didn’t support the voucher there because they added millions and millions of dollars to pay for the vouchers. You weren’t saving any money at all and there were already up to $15,000 per student and you know how much it costs to teach a home schooler these days, several hundred dollars. But here in DC, it costs $15,000 and they’re getting very little education.

Wayne Allyn Root: Right, failing results with the highest money spent in the country.

Ron Paul: Yeah.

Wayne Allyn Root: But most dollars total spent in the country at education; California, the highest paid teachers in the country and most recently in tests, finished second to last in the country, which just goes to show you, it isn’t money. It isn’t quantity of dollars. It’s quality, I think, that would make education work.

Ron Paul: Yeah, that’s the big thing, but the biggest thing is to have competition, free entry and to have choices and even when the government is involved, at least, it keeps them on their toes. As a matter of fact, I use that same principle when it comes to money. I mean, we can’t get rid of the Federal Reserve in one day. It may self destruct and ruin our money. That might end it all, but right now, if you just legalize our option to use gold and silver like the Constitution says as legal tender, let us deal in our own currency. I think that the solution could be transitional, but they won’t have any part of that. They want a monopoly control over the money and credit.

Wayne Allyn Root: And I assume, you know, in my book, I recommend going back to the gold standard. I know that’s an old thing that you agree with as well. Tell the people out there what the gold standard means and why you think it will be effective if, in fact, we went back to that, instead of fiat money.

Ron Paul: Well, first off, it’s constitutional. There’s no authority for a Central Bank like the Federal Reserve to create money out of thin air and only gold and silver is legal tender under the Constitution. Economically, when you have a Central Bank and not a gold standard, you expand credit and that creates the bubble and then you have the depression or recession.

Morally speaking, it’s wrong because it’s equivalent to counterfeiting and also one of the worst things about it is when you can print money, it encourages the growth of the state because you don’t have to be responsible in the Congress. Because you can run up deficits either for militarism or for welfarism and then you just monetize the debt, so there’s so many reasons why the gold standard is so much better than the Federal Reserve and the paper standard.

Wayne Allyn Root: And what’s funny is I forgot to mention, by the way, that this segment, Dr. Paul, is sponsored by RCW Rare Coin Wholesalers, one of America’s biggest gold and rare coin companies and their catch phrase is “Eliminating the Middleman”. They sell everything at wholesale, so you’re ahead of the game from the moment you buy the gold and the rare coins, so let me just give a good kudos to our sponsor, Rare Coin Wholesalers. Their website, rcw1.com and the 800 phone number is 800-347-3250, 800-347-3250.

That brings me to my last real question and that is, I’ve got a chapter in my book coming out. I sure hope you’ll grab a copy from me. I’d love to… I’d be honored if you would read my book and I hope you’ll like it and it’s got a chapter that I know you’ll enjoy. It’s called, “We Must Destroy the Fed Before the Fed Destroys Us”, and I was only saying it facetiously and yet I meant it because I think the Fed is at the root, excuse the pun, of so many of our problems right now. Is there any chance that we could make the Fed go away or at least hold them accountable and find out with an audit what it is exactly they’ve been doing with taxpayer money?

Ron Paul: Well, it’s not going away easily. They will fight tooth and nail. I, of course, have this move in the House and we have 189 co-sponsors on a bill to audit the Fed and expose what they are doing. The Senate had a pretty strong version of that, but when it came close to being passed, it was watered down to a large degree.

So they’re not going to go away without a fight, but the audit is the first step to expose them and then it might be eliminated more by self-destruction because if they destroy the dollar, it will discredit the Federal Reserve and that’s probably what will happen if continue the policies that we have today and that could happen within the next couple of years.

Wayne Allyn Root: Explain to the people out there, though, because it’s very confusing and I know I was confused until a year or two ago about this issue. They’re not a government entity. They’re a quasi-government, quasi-private entity. How could you be both private and/or government? Why do people think the Fed is part of the government?

Ron Paul: Well, it’s unique. Obviously, it’s not private like… well, we can’t even say “private like General Motors” anymore. I guess, General Motors is getting to be like the Fed, almost. But anyway, no, it’s created by government. Congress passed a bill, the Federal Reserve Act, in 1913, so Congress created it, but they gave it a unique status. It was never to be audited. It have free rein. It could create money out of thin air and it’s secret. That’s the big thing. It’s not so much it’s private. People like to say, “Well, it’s totally private.” No, it’s very secret, but the private insiders get the benefit.

Even without taking money under the table, the information that they get or the extended loans and all these things, the power that they have, that’s why it is so important for us to find out more about it and find out exactly what they’ve been doing.

Wayne Allyn Root: Just for the last two years, I really never thought about the Fed until I started reading your writings and your books and all of a sudden, it became clear to me that the Fed is at the root of this idea that government, anytime it wants, a politician can win favor by printing more money and giving out the largesse and I think the Fed is the root of that entire problem of overspending.

Ron Paul: Yeah, if you want a free society and you want to have it based on individual liberty and common sense, you can’t have a Central Bank like our Federal Reserve and I’m sorry, I have to apologize, but I’ve got to run to catch a vote.

Wayne Allyn Root: Thank you, Dr. Ron Paul.

Ron Paul: All right.

Wayne Allyn Root: Thank you very much.

Ron Paul: Very good. Thank you.

Wayne Allyn Root: All right, that was Dr. Ron Paul.

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