by Ron Paul
Last week the Senate and House demonstrated again why their approval ratings are so low. The 154 page “fiscal cliff” bill was made available to Senators just three minutes before the vote was taken on the legislation. No one can read 154 pages in three minutes, so it is safe to assume that the legislation was passed without being read.
Then the House brought the lengthy and complicated bill to a vote just 22 hours after the text had been available, meaning a full reading of the legislation was not likely possible. This was a clear violation of the “three day rule” adopted by the 112th Congress, which in the name of transparency ordered the House to make legislation available to the public a full three days before a Floor vote.
Perhaps this race to a vote, amid cries of the end of the world without a solution to the manufactured crisis, explains why an even greater than usual amount of special-interest carve-outs made it into the bill.
Article 1, Section 7 of the US Constitution clearly states that “All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives,” but as has been done many times, the Senate simply attached its bill to an existing House bill and claimed that this Constitutional requirement had been satisfied.
If the process was dishonest and unconstitutional, the content of the bill was even worse.
The “rescue” legislation was packed full of special tax deals for well-connected corporations with the money to hire high-profile lobbyists – usually those who have spent a good deal of time as legislators themselves.
The principle of tax cuts and breaks themselves are not the problem, however. It is incorrect to view any return of tax money to its rightful owner as money taken from the government. Wealth belongs to those who generate it not to government. However, while well-connected special interests like Hollywood and rum manufacturers were being granted targeted tax assistance, the vast majority of Americans were being hit with a significant tax increase in the form of higher payroll taxes. Rather than cut a dime from federal spending, this bill granted breaks to the corporate elites and paid for the “lost revenue” by passing the costs on to the rest of us.
The “fiscal cliff” bill also rescued other corporate interests. Included in the text was a nine-month extension of the 2008 Farm Bill. This is corporate welfare at its worst, spending billions to enrich big corporate farms with direct subsidies at the expense of small farmers — and the taxpayer.
Last week’s last minute deal was the worst of both worlds: higher taxes on nearly all Americans now and a promise to begin thinking about modest cuts in spending growth two months down the road. While there was much hand-wringing over the “draconian” cuts that would have been imposed by sequestration, in fact sequestration would not have cut spending at all. Under the sequestration plan, government spending would increase by $1.6 trillion over the next eight years. Congress calls this a cut because without sequestration spending would increase by $1.7 trillion over the same time frame. Either way it is an increase in spending, however.
I have little hope that a majority of Congress and the President will change their ways and support real spending reductions. Fortunately, increasing numbers of Americans are awakening to the dangers posed by the growth of the welfare-warfare state. Hopefully this movement will continue to grow and force the politicians to reverse course before government spending, taxing, and inflation destroys our economy entirely.
Photo by Gage Skidmore
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I’m still hoping you speak some sense!
Anything but foul words would be nice.
watch?v=SG4c97xXx84
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Actually, if he was really honest, he would be shouting CAFR funds from the rooftop…watch Corporation Nation CAFR several times and prove me wrong
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I hate to tell you guys this cause I did like RP but people really have no idea what they are up against…even with all the “truth” flying around….what no one is telling you is the one thing that people really should know….watch corporation nation CAFR and educate yourself…watch it 5 times…yes, I know it is long,but it is by far the most important thing you could ever watch in relation to economics-politics-philosophy
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Cute troll.
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thomas wood on how child labor only can and does happen in a non market economy and why: the question becomes why are the children working? No one asks this question. The assumption is that if you have one of these third world countries where a lot of children work the assumption is that all the parents in that country stink. Like this a country of stinko parents. That we should just go in there and take these children away from all these parents. But we should really just ask try to understand the world around us. Why are the kids working in the first place. It is because the society they live in is so physically unproductive that if the kids dont work the family starves. That is why they work. That is why child labor has existed since the beginning of time. It is not like people said kids capitalism is here of to the mines. Kids have been working forever in evrey society. It never occured to anyone that someday you could live in a society in which your labor was so productive thanks to the capital goods at your disposal that you could work and earn enouph purchasing power so that your kid wouldnt have to. It never occured to anybody. But like at how much more work a person could do with a steam shovel then a regular shovel and multiply that extravagant that through our whole eocnomy. But up till the free market come along up till a capitalist economy evreybody just assumed okay life consists of grinding proverty and then you are dead. Evreybody assumed that. So no one in the year 1100 is going around protesting proverty. No one you will not find anyone protesting proverty or having a hunger strike or a candle light vigil about proverty because evreyone assumed of course you are going to be poor that is the way life is you are poor live with it. I mean even the king has to urinate and then toss it out the window because they did not have flushed toilets until very recently. The king for heavens sake. It is only when the free market comes along and we see that proverty begins to diminish that people become impatient with proverty and they say wait a minute for the first time it seems that proverty can be done away with then they start complaining about it. But what is the point complaining about it when you think it is a fixture of life. So in terms of the child labor issue child labor goes away not because you pass a law saying children are not going to work. It goes away becuase the economy thanks to the free market becomes capital intensive enouph that it produces enouph stuff that mom and dad can work the kids dont have to. That is what does it. In bangladesh the children charity oxfam pointed out that when a bunch of americans and europeans where griping and complaning about child labor in bangladesh. They have this big campaign against child labor in bangladesh. Did child labor go away when the banladesh goverment got rid of it. No what happened was as oxfam reported the children either went into prositution instead which as bad as it is to work in a sweatshop you know obviously it could be worse. They either went into prostitution or they starved. That is what happened. Well nice going geniuses. What way to solve that problem but that was the approach. Even the internatioal labor organizing which doesnt concede anything it admits okay the reason kids are working is because the society is so poor that they are contributing at least a quarter of the family income. when you are living in a society like that if you lose a quarter of the family income you are dead that is it. So what they need is more capitalism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7Qf0ey-pOo
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Although Marx advocated the use of any means, especially including violent revolution, to bring about socialist dictatorship, he suggested ten political goals for developed countries such as the United States. How far has the United States — traditionally the bastion of freedom, free markets, and private property — gone down the Marxist road to fulfill these socialist aims? You be the judge. The following are Marx’s ten planks from his Communist Manifesto. 1. Abolition of private property in land and application of all rents of land to public purpose.
The courts have interpreted the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (1868) to give the government far more “eminent domain” power than was originally intended, Under the rubric of “eminent domain” and various zoning regulations, land use regulations by the Bureau of Land Managementproperty taxes, and “environmental” excuses, private property rights have become very diluted and private property in landis, vehicles, and other forms are seized almost every day in this country under the “forfeiture” provisions of the RICO statutes and the so-called War on Drugs..
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
The 16th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, 1913 (which some scholars maintain was never properly ratified), and various State income taxes, established this major Marxist coup in the United States many decades ago. These taxes continue to drain the lifeblood out of the American economy and greatly reduce the accumulation of desperately needed capital for future growth, business starts, job creation, and salary increases.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
Another Marxian attack on private property rights is in the form of Federal & State estate taxes and other inheritance taxes, which have abolished or at least greatly diluted the right of private property owners to determine the disposition and distribution of their estates upon their death. Instead, government bureaucrats get their greedy hands involved .
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
We call it government seizures, tax liens, “forfeiture” Public “law” 99-570 (1986); Executive order 11490, sections 1205, 2002 which gives private land to the Department of Urban Development; the imprisonment of “terrorists” and those who speak out or write against the “government” (1997 Crime/Terrorist Bill); or the IRS confiscation of property without due process.
5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
The Federal Reserve System, created by the Federal Reserve Act of Congress in 1913, is indeed such a “national bank” and it politically manipulates interest rates and holds a monopoly on legal counterfeiting in the United States. This is exactly what Marx had in mind and completely fulfills this plank, another major socialist objective. Yet, most Americans naively believe the U.S. of A. is far from a Marxist or socialist nation.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transportation in the hands of the state.
In the U.S., communication and transportation are controlled and regulated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) established by the Communications Act of 1934 and the Department of Transportation and the Interstate Commerce Commission (established by Congress in 1887), and the Federal Aviation Administration as well as Executive orders 11490, 10999 — not to mention various state bureaucracies and regulations. There is also the federal postal monopoly, AMTRAK and CONRAIL — outright socialist (government-owned) enterprises. Instead of free-market private enteprrise in these important industries, these fields in America are semi-cartelized through the government’s regulatory-industiral complex.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
While the U.S. does not have vast “collective farms” (which failed so miserably in the Soviet Union), we nevertheless do have a significant degree of government involvement in agriculture in the form of price support subsidies and acreage alotments and land-use controls. The Desert Entry Act and The Department of Agriculture. As well as the Department of Commerce and Labor, Department of Interior, the Evironmental Protection Agency, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, Bureau of Mines, National Park Service, and the IRS control of business through corporate regulations.
8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of Industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
We call it the Social Security Administration and The Department of Labor. The National debt and inflation caused by the communal bank has caused the need for a two “income” family. Woman in the workplace since the 1920′s, the 19th amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, assorted Socialist Unions, affirmative action, the Federal Public Works Program and of course Executive order 11000. And I almost forgot…The Equal Rights Amendment means that women should do all work that men do including the military and since passage it would make women subject to the draft.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the population over the country.
We call it the Planning Reorganization Act of 1949 , zoning (Title 17 1910-1990) and Super Corporate Farms, as well as Executive orders 11647, 11731 (ten regions) and Public “law” 89-136.
10. Free education for all children in government schools. Abolition of children’s factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc. etc.
People are being taxed to support what we call ‘public’ schools, which train the young to work for the communal debt system. We also call it the Department of Education, the NEA and Outcome Based “Education” .
So, is the U.S. a “free country” today? Hardly! Not compared to what it once was. Yet, very few Americans today challenge these Marxist institutions, and there are virtually no politicians calling for their repeal or even gradual phase-out. While the United States of America may still have more freedoms than most other countries, we have nonetheless lost many crucial liberties and have accepted the major socialist attacks on freedom and private property as normal parts of our way of life. The nation, whose founders included such individualists as Thomas Jefferson, George Mason, James Madison, John Adams and Patrick Henry, has gradually turned away from the principles of individual rights, limited constitutional government, private property, and free markets and instead we increasingly have embraced the failed ideas and nostrums of socialism and fascism. We should hang our heads in shame for having allowed this to happen.
But, it is not too late to reverse these pernicious burdens and instead enact pro-freedom reforms to put our nation back on track again. It can be done.
In some ways the Left has a head start over us on the pro-freedom Right. The enemies of American freedom do admittedly dominate the entertainment industry, television news media, and academia — but we have the tremendous strategic advantage that reality (including man’s nature) is on our side; so, unlike the socialists and “liberals” (welfare-state fascists), we are not in the position of having to advocate a system which constantly tries to “make water to go uphill” — or force human beings into a rigid utopian staitjacket based on the whims of some clique of central planning bureaucrats. We know that individual freedom for peaceful people within a constitutional republic works in practice; our country’s history demonstrates that. The piecemeal abandonment of those principles and institutions which once made America great has proved to be a a dead-end road to failure. That is why I tend to be a long-term optimist even though things often look pretty glum in the meantime. Just as Prohibition was eventually repealed, I feel encouraged that such key statist achievements as the income tax, government schools, fiat money/central banking (the Federal Reserve), “environmentalist” regulations, property forfeiture laws, and other Marxist planks and leftist institutions can be rolled back and repealed altogether, although it may take several decades.
Those who would carry forward the ideas and principles of self-ownership, private property, free markets, laissez faire, the rule of law, and constitutionalism which informed America’s founders must become more active on the key ideological battle fronts. We need more influence not just in politics, but in areas of entertainment, academia, journalism, think tanks, churches (we need our own individualist Walter Rauschenbushes), literature, art, and other venues of expression and activism.
Marxism and socialism have proved to be colossal failures all over the world. As Frederic Bastiat wrote in his classic The Law just prior to his death, “let us now try liberty”!
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democracies in the early greek city states produced the wildest excesses of goverment imaginable. In evrey case they ended up with mob rule then anarchy and finally tyranny under an obligarchy. During that period in greece there was a man named solom who urged creation of a fixed body of law not subject to majority whims. While the greeks never adopted soloms wise council the romans did. Based on what they knew of soloms laws they created the 12 tables of the romon law and in effect built a republic that limited goverment power and left the people alone. Since goverment was limited people were free to produce with the understanding that they could keep the fruits of their labor. In time rome became wealthy and the envy of the world. In the mist of plenty hovewer the romon people forgot what freedom entailed. They forgot that the essence of freedom was the proper limitation of goverment. When goverment power grows peoples freedom receeds. Once the romons dropped their gaurd power seeking politicans begin to exceed the powers granted to them in the romon constitution. Some learned that they could use goverment power to take property from some and give it to others. agriculture subsidies were introduced followed by housing and welfare programs. Inevitably taxes rose and control over the private sector were imposed. Soon a number of romes produces no longer could make ends meet and they went on the dull. Productivity declined, shortages developed, and mobs begin roaming the streets demanding bread and circuces from the goverment. Many were induced to trade freedom for security. Eventually the whole system came crashing down. It went from a republic to a democracy and ended up with an obligarchy under precession of the ceasers.: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFXuGIpsdE0
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Feel’s good to say shit and feel superior like that doesn’t it?
Don’t worry, everything will come back to you at some point.
That’s physics!
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Ron Paul is a fuckin’ jakass.
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wRONg Paul is a fuckin’ HOMO!
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Pissing in the wind, gotta be done all the time, untill you get the job done. Let’s hope that wind loses and the piss becomes relief.
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Pissing in the wind, gotta be done all the time, untill you get the job done. Let’s hope that wind loses and the piss becomes relief.
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Wealth can only be generated by taking money from someone else, in return for something else.
The working class should have the same healthcare as the rich people, because rich people cannot be rich without the working class.
Socialism has to counter capitalism, otherwise we end up with private kings with private armies, bribing the government to push evil law, just like we have today.
Or to put it short, we need the crop fields and not the banks.
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lust4design aka NeedlFucker The Bug Fucker, I answered my own question? I see, the reason why you’re such a dick is BECAUSE you’re. a dick!…..a tiny little infant dick!
Dude, you’re really fuckin’ stupid.
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After seeing the comments I see America has gone, it is over. To many really bad, vulgar people.
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And I don’t think you are aware of the fact that you have a two digit IQ. My name is spelled exactly the way I choose to spell it.
Exodus 3:13-14 Roman Catholic translation.
Btw, go back home, your village wants their idiot back!
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Weirdos, freaks and cultists. Paultards also believe flying saucers are real, and they’re sure that one day soon, they’ll prove that bigfoot is another “Jew banker” operative, come here from the Crab Nebula to take over the world and create a world government and take away OUR LIBERTY!!!!!
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Ron Paul 2016!
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Suck a dick, you motherfucker. Go to hell, you bucket full of filth. Suck a sack, drink some piss, eat some shit. You’re a weirdo son of a whore, go and fuck the neighbor’s cat!
Now stick that in your pipe and smoke it.
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I think you just answered your own question!
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I think you just answered your own question!
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BTW – I am a total Ron Paul supporter. This is my only criticism of Dr. Paul. If he would just provide a little more detail when speaking about the supposed “Rights” of the money makers. In example, a doctor (a majority of them) make an honest living and usually good money and have long term potential of creating substantial wealth… The majority of large business, investment bankers and Wall Street stockbrokers DO NOT – THEY STEAL and our government allows them to!
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What about the wealth that is created by theft? What about the wealth that is derived by unscrupulous business practices such as engineered obsolescence or dump engineering (predetermined product failure of faulty or weak materials and/or known faulty geometrics or programmed termination dates)? Who decides which practiced methods of obtaining wealth are moral, ethical, LEGAL? WHO’S RESOLVE? Let me guess the market? Markets do not work when dominated by cartels and monopolies!
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already did
Great advice!
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Why are you such a fuckin’ dick?
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Remove his comment
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who’s paying you to spread your bullshit?
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isn’t it sad that he’s right about that. if our money wasn’t fiat, faith~based, we couldn’t have the depreciation of the dollar, and all other global fiat currencies
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I’m Ron Paul and I say we all go fetch a pot a gold to fix the economy!
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…damnit!
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why do you say this?
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You are the closest thing to a Zombie I ever encountered!
Know and realize what you are contributing for, every day with your choices. Let go of the meds. Seek real help. Do you have any “real” friends?
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GovernMental will always be Mental while Americans stays stupid. Stupid is is what stupid does and that is nothing
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you would think that would go w/o saying but in the new communist nwo that is reality!
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Any one of Dr. Paul’s “Straight Talk” segments provides ample proof of treason and corruption at the very core of this illegitimate gubmint. Collectively they are overwhelming. And yet the game continues unabated, indeed stronger than ever. It’s way past time to storm the Bastille here, folks.
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democracies in the early greek city states produced the wildest excesses of goverment imaginable. In evrey case they ended up with mob rule then anarchy and finally tyranny under an obligarchy. During that period in greece there was a man named solom who urged creation of a fixed body of law not subject to majority whims. While the greeks never adopted soloms wise council the romans did. Based on what they knew of soloms laws they created the 12 tables of the romon law and in effect built a republic that limited goverment power and left the people alone. Since goverment was limited people were free to produce with the understanding that they could keep the fruits of their labor. In time rome became wealthy and the envy of the world. In the mist of plenty hovewer the romon people forgot what freedom entailed. They forgot that the essence of freedom was the proper limitation of goverment. When goverment power grows peoples freedom receeds. Once the romons dropped their gaurd power seeking politicans begin to exceed the powers granted to them in the romon constitution. Some learned that they could use goverment power to take property from some and give it to others. agriculture subsidies were introduced followed by housing and welfare programs. Inevitably taxes rose and control over the private sector were imposed. Soon a number of romes produces no longer could make ends meet and they went on the dull. Productivity declined, shortages developed, and mobs begin roaming the streets demanding bread and circuces from the goverment. Many were induced to trade freedom for security. Eventually the whole system came crashing down. It went from a republic to a democracy and ended up with an obligarchy under precession of the ceasers.: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFXuGIpsdE0
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