Channel: Fox Business
Host: Davis Asman
Date: 11/04/2009
Transcript:
David Asman: Are politicians inside the Beltway aware of the extent to which Americans object to all the recent government spending and government intrusions in our lives? One man who clearly is aware of the discontent is Ron Paul; he’s been fighting against government intrusion for some time now, and he joins us. Good to see you, Congressman. Thanks for being here.
Ron Paul: Thank you, David. Nice to be with you.
David Asman: So do you feel somewhat vindicated by yesterday’s elections?
Ron Paul: Well, in some ways. I mean it’s not exactly that each candidate that won was espousing everything that I’ve said. But I think it makes the point that people are unhappy and they’re punishing the right people; the people who are in charge. Republicans got punished a couple of years ago and I think that’s appropriate. People are very upset, more so now than ever before, and they’re directing their attention to Washington. The party that’s in charge should be penalized and who knows, this will probably spill over to next year. So I think it’s very good, it’s a good trend and hopefully the Republicans have learnt a lesson. So if we do get another chance we do a heck of a lot better job than we did when we got in control before.
David Asman: But frankly, it is business as usually for some politicians. Beyond what Nancy Pelosi said, I understand the senate just passed a bill to extend unemployment insurance, but tucked very secretly inside that bill was an extension of the $8,000 credit for first home buyers, which had some real questionable results couple of months ago. Some people are saying it didn’t do anything except spend more taxpayer money.
Ron Paul: Yeah, I don’t think anything has really changed here. If they had a concern about our problems and think it was related to government spending, why would they offer up all these new programs, you know, this trillion dollar medical package? But I think the absurdity even on the medical package is that the Pelosi crowd tells the people, “We’re going to be able to insure everybody and it’s not going to cost you anything. We’re going to save enough money by cutting waste and fraud.”
When the American people see that, whether they’re conservatives or liberals, I don’t think they buy into that. I think they lose credibility on this. But no, it’s business as usual whether it is spending or borrowing or printing the money. And I’m on the Financial Service Committee and it seems like just on a daily basis the solution is “if we just had more bureaucrats to protect us against all these bad investment.” But never asking the question why are people encouraged to make bad decisions, does it have anything to do with monetary policy? No, that’s not really ever discussed.G
David Asman: Incentives: you know, you put your finger on exactly the point. They don’t understand that if you increase tax rates, people may decide to make less money or hide their money and maybe they won’t get the $400 billion they hope to get from new taxes to fund health care.
Ron Paul: Yeah, there is always an unintended consequence that they haven’t anticipated. They don’t see much past their nose. And whether it’s domestic policy or foreign policy, I think the unintended consequences of government policies are unbelievable. Mises, the great Austrian economist, said, “Every time the government has an intervention in the marketplace for a so-called good reasons, it creates two new problems”. And, of course, I think he would be vindicated now when you look back over the last hundred years, especially since the Depression, at all the interventions that we’ve had in the marketplace. And they have been able to keep themselves in business. They create more problems, more bureaucrats, saying, “Hell yeah, those are good jobs, of course, they’re really productive”.
David Asman: Congressman, I thought that short of a 2 x 4 whacked across their head, an election loss like we saw yesterday in New Jersey, Virginia, does have a tendency to shake politicians up because after all one thing they care about more than anything else is getting re-elected.
Ron Paul: Yeah, that is the case and they’re not seeing the light and instead of maybe backing off a little bit and thinking about the medical package, they’ve speeded it up. So we’ll be here Saturday night; we’re supposed to vote on that bill on Saturday evening. And it’s just more of the same. It will not improve the quality of medical care, it’s going to cost a lot more, there will be unintended consequences. The insurance companies will probably be coming out okay and drug companies will do okay. There will be all kinds of things. Next year the people will be yelling and screaming. But, fortunately, there are a significant number of American people right now who are seeing the handwriting on the wall and they are complaining about the process up here. But so far they haven’t gotten the attention of the leadership.
David Asman: Well, maybe not the leadership, but I was talking to some Blue Dog Democrats today and they said on air in public that they have serious problems with the Pelosi Bill. They had problems with the Bachus bill as well. But the Pelosi Bill is even more costly and it raises taxes more. They suggested they’re not going to vote for it over the weekend. Is there enough of a revolt now among Blue Dog Democrats and, of course, all the Republicans so that Pelosi won’t have the bill passed?
Ron Paul: I guess it’s always possible. I mean, we’ve been led to believe today “Be prepared, be here, start early Saturday, hopefully we will get it done by Saturday evening”. But things do shift, I mean, maybe if in another 24 hours of thinking about the election, maybe they will change their tune. It has happened before. When the American people get really, really outraged, they usually get attention of this place. But unfortunately things get so bad for so long that it’s hard to turn this battleship or this aircraft carrier around. We can make efforts but it is a major problem to reverse the trend. Because, quite frankly, as much as I’m opposed to all the spending and inflating, to stop it in its tracks and turn it around, there are going to be some people who aren’t going to be very happy with this. But if we continue this process, then we’re going to have a bankruptcy which will be manifesting itself in a dollar crisis, and that’s what I’m concerned about: these policies that we’re following are going to lead to the destruction of our dollar, and I think right now today we’ve noticed that even gold is signaling maybe some significant inflation ahead.
David Asman: Oh, it sure is. There are a whole lot of signs of inflation ahead. But one other big spending bill, of course, is Cap and Trade. A little later on in this program we’re going to be talking about Al Gore and how much money he’s making from certain carbon credit deals that he’s involved with. But I’m told by some people inside the Beltway that Cap and Trade is a dead deal for this year at least. Are you hearing the same thing?
Ron Paul: I haven’t heard that, I hear the conversation and let’s hope that it’s true. But that, of course, again will be a major victory for people who believe in sanity and markets. But there is still a lot of pressure. You know, the greatest hoax I think that has been around in many, many years if not hundreds of years has been this hoax on the environment and global warming. You notice they don’t call it global warming anymore. It’s weather control. [climate change]
David Asman: No, no, no. Because it’s getting cooler, you can’t call it global warming anymore.
Ron Paul: But it is a monster and sometime they’re going to have to say, “Hey, why hasn’t the economy improved itself? We pumped in all the…” You know, the Krugmans of the world. “Well, you just didn’t do enough. You know, trillions of dollars from the Fed and 800 billion dollars from the Congress, sure it’s working, you just need more.” You know, someday people will come to their senses, but probably not this week yet.
David Asman: Well, I got to ask you one final question because you have had some success in getting transparency – people behind you are voting for transparency in the Federal Reserve. Are there other issues on which you have been sort of the lone voice in the wilderness where people are finally coming in and joining you?
Ron Paul: Well, I think on the fiscal policies of just voting against some of the spending I would hope so. I guess the sentiment is there. But they don’t quite grasp what I am doing on the House floor, because I vote for anything that has money in it; every nickel, unless you pay for it. Not by taxes but by cutting someplace else. So if there is a program that we want to do, we should cut it from someplace else. I get a lot of sympathy for this saying, “You’re right, we should do this”. But I don’t think the votes have changed significantly. I do think the Republicans are voting better and I kid the other Republicans and I said, “Are you guys voting with me now, or am I voting with you?” But we are voting together more so than we did when the Republicans were in charge of spending the money.
David Asman: And you do have some Blue Dog Democrats with you as well. Congressman, Dr. Ron Paul, it’s been great to see you. Thank you very much for being here.
Ron Paul: Thank you, David.
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Evolution denier. Global warming denier. Denier of womens’ rights to free choice.
Ron Paul 2013!
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I didn’t know Ron Paul was a Climate Change Denier….
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