Ron Paul: This weekend I got a couple of calls from the media asking me questions about Rick Perry, our governor here in Texas and the statements he made about possible secession. Now, he didn’t call for secession, but he was restating a principle that was long held and at least in the original time of our country, and that is that there was a right to secession.

Actually, after the Civil War, nobody believes there is a so-called right to secession, but it is a very legitimate issue to debate because all of the states that came into the Union before the Civil War believed they have a right to secede and New England in the early part of the 19th century actually considered it, and nobody questioned them about whether they had the right to do it or not.

Since the Civil War, it’s been sort of a dead issue, but he brought it up. It stirred the media and believe me, it really stirred some of the liberal media where they started really screaming about what is going on here. “This is un-American”, I heard one individual say, “This is treasonous to even talk about it.”

Well, they don’t know their history very well because if they think about it, it’s an American tradition. It’s very American to talk about secession. That’s how we came into being. Thirteen colonies seceded from the British and established a new country, so secession is very much an American principle.

What about all the strong endorsements we have given over the past decade or two of those republics that seceded from the Soviet system? We were delighted with this. We never said, “Oh no. Secession is treasonous”.

No. Secession is a good principle. Just think of the benefits that would have come over these last 230-some years if the principle of secession had existed. That means the federal government would always have been restrained, not to overburden the states with too much federalism, too many federal rules and regulations.

But since that was all wiped out with the Civil War, the federal government has grown by leaps and bounds and we have suffered the consequences, and we need to reconsider this. It’s not un-American to think about the possibility of secession. This is something that’s voluntary. We came together voluntarily. A free society means you can dissolve it voluntarily. That was the whole issue was about.

Just remember one of the reasons that Wilson drove us in unnecessarily into World War I. He talked about what we have to give, have every country in the world the benefit of self-determination, a good principle. Of course, I don’t think he really believed that. But self-determination is a good principle. It’s a very American principle, so to me it’s a shame that we can’t discuss this.

You know, it’s interesting that so many of us have been taught for so many years, and as long as I can remember from the first grade on up taking the pledge of allegiance that we have a republic that’s “indivisible” and we have been preached that and preached it. So therefore, there is no contest, no question since the Civil War that we have even the thought that this could happen.

But you know what a lot of people don’t talk about and they really don’t even know about is who wrote the pledge to the flag. The pledge to the flag came from, for instance, Bellamy, an avowed Socialist who wanted to put into concrete in the pledge this principle of being indivisible, and he did it, you know, for the celebration ironically 400 years of the celebration of the landing of Christopher Columbus, so it was in 1892.

I mean, the pledge of allegiance has not been here, you know, all our history. So I think it’s worth of discussion. I think people should discuss this because right now, the American people are sick and tired of it all and I think the time will come when people will consider it much more seriously is when the federal government can no longer deliver. That time will come when the dollar collapses.

No matter what they do and how many promises they have and how many bailouts they have, they can’t do it if the money doesn’t work. So then, the independence of the states will come back and it doesn’t mean that you’ll be un-American to even contemplate what might have to be done once the dollar crashes.

While this video was originally recorded on 4/19/2009, Ron Paul spokeswoman Rachel Mills confirmed earlier today (11/13/2012) that Ron Paul “feels the same now” about secession as he did in this video.

In the video, Congressman Paul argues that:

1. The action is an act of War.
2. The no-fly zone is unconstitutional because Congress has not authorized it, a point Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Richard Lugar agrees with.
3. President Obama has illegally seceded U.S. sovereignty to the United Nations.
4. The United States cannot afford the financial burden of more military action in the Middle East.

Date: 03/18/2011

Date: 02/03/2011

Transcript

Ron Paul: I’d like to give you an update on the PATRIOT Act. Last year, the PATRIOT Act was scheduled to be renewed. There was a disagreement between the Senate and the House and they didn’t extend it, but they agreed that this year they would do it. Right now, I think the scheme is that they’re going to pass it as quietly as possible. Yet we hear now that there are going that be some meetings this week in the Senate Judiciary Committee and that they are now planning to get this bill and law renewed.

So keep an eye on this and I understand that the people at the Campaign for Liberty will try to keep you informed with updates on their website. Thank you.

Rush Transcript

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Ron Paul: Yesterday on the House floor we voted on the conference report dealing with financial reforms. The bill that came back after it was in conference with the Senate. The House version of that bill had the audit provision in it; the HR 1207. It was removed in conference. So when the package came back to the floor, the Republicans had once chance to amend this bill, which is called recommit motion. And we were able to include HR 1207 in this package to see if we could get it put back in. An interesting thing happened here, because you know, we do have 320 co-sponsors of HR 1207, and it passed the committee rather easily and it was not challenged on the House floor on the first go-around run. But here we were, on the House floor with a chance to put it back in, and 114 individuals who were co-sponsors of the legislation, voted against it; they voted not to include it. But this is not totally surprising. This is the way this system works too often. People do flip flop and they do change. But it also reflects the fact that the Federal Reserve is a very powerful institution, and they were able to influence these votes. But it still is sad to see that a co-sponsor of a bill this important, that the people really care about and has a great deal of significance, all of a sudden changes. I mean supervision and monitoring and knowing what the Federal Reserve is doing is very, very important. The people want to know about this. Transparency is so important, and yet it failed on the house floor.

Now does that mean it’s over and done with? Well, pretty much so, even though there is a slight possibility another type of legislation that deals with banking regulations may come up before the end of the year, and we may get a chance to offer as a recommit motion if the leadership on the Republican side permits it. But as for now, it looks like we will not have a full audit. But believe me, a lot of benefit has come from this. The Federal Reserve will not get off completely, because more people in this country than ever before know that the Federal Reserve is very, very important, they know they were responsible for the problems that we have, and they know that they work in secrecy. The American people want to know about it. So even though they may have won this battle, they are not going to win the war. Because what they’re doing is going to be devastating to us because this piece of legislation actually gave more power to the Federal Reserve, not less. More power to the regulators, more effort to keep themselves in secret. So, therefore, I see on the long term this is very, very beneficial, so I would say for those individuals that believe in monetary reform and transparency, we will keep the heat on the Fed until we get an honest monetary system.

Question: Is there still reason to be optimistic for an audit sometime in the future?

Ron Paul: Well, I certainly think so. In spite of this setback I think there is reason to be very hopeful that we have made a major step in the right direction. Monetary reform is certainly of a great deal of interest to the younger generation and it will be that younger generation that will be dealing with the reforms. People are reading and studying about central banking, the Federal Reserve, they’re reading Austrian economics. So I would say there is every reason to be optimistic in the long run, but not right at this moment. Certainly maybe the next session of Congress after elections, maybe we can be even more hopeful.

Date: 5/25/2010

Transcript

Ron Paul: This week we have a couple of bills potentially coming into the House dealing with foreign policy. One will be the DOD budget, which is over $700 billion, then there’s going to be a bill for the supplemental, which is the war budget.

The previous administration always brought all the supplemental war budgets up as emergency and they were highly criticized for it. But we’re still continuing that process. I have no idea how much that’s going to be, probably be a lot of pork stuck in it as well, so that’s going to be controversial.

But obviously we don’t support these wars in the Middle East and the potential of spreading these wars, it’s not a very good expenditure.

Matter of fact, the $707 billion so-called defense budget is not a very good investment as well from my viewpoint. $700 billion is support for the military-industrial complex is what I call it. There should be a distinction made between defense spending as well as military spending. Just because we put it in the DOD, it’s military for sure but it is not necessarily going to help us in defense.

With all these sums added up, what we spend it’s well over a trillion dollars a year in so-called “making us safe”. And it looks like it’s never ending. Today, we are dealing with the crisis that has been brewing over in Korea, and that is certainly a dangerous spot. But for us to be in the middle of that doesn’t make any sense to me. To jeopardize American troops in a situation like that just seems like we’re going out of our way to look for trouble.

At the same time, we have two wars going on. One in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. There’s so many shortcomings with that, as well as the provocations with the Iranians. Looking for sanctions, and the Iranians right now have agreed to accept the proposal made by Brazil and Turkey to do exactly what our government asked them to do a few months ago, and our government now doesn’t want to deal with it.

They’re willing to turn their nuclear refinement over and let Turkey take care of this, so I just don’t know what the purpose of this is. Instead, we have five aircraft carriers supposedly in the Persian Gulf and in the area around Iran. It doesn’t make a lot of sense.

The money is going to run out, and that to me is probably the end point for this, because empires tend to come to an end for financial reasons, and even though we are not suffering quite like Spain, our condition is not any better than Spain and Europe. And Europe’s in trouble with these financial problems, and someday this whole crisis, the financial crisis, will limit what we do.

Not only overseas, internationally and this war spending as well as the domestic spending. So this week, I’m not sure, I’m making this little report on Tuesday, and maybe by the end of the week we’ll have one or both of those bills on the floor, but since there’s no money in the bank, it’s all going to be debt, it’s all going to be borrowed, it’s all going to be printing press money, whatever.

But it will not be a good investment because quite frankly, that type of spending will not make us safer. I am convinced the foreign policy that we have been following for so many years makes us less safe, not more safe. So until that day comes when we can look at our foreign policy and decide that a non-interventionist foreign policy is better than one where we decide to be the policeman of the world, to get involved in internal affairs of other nations, and get involved in all the nation building… until we decide that’s not a good policy, we’re going to continue on this path of bankruptcy and actually a great more danger to the American people.

The founders had it right. We ought to mind our own businesses and live within our means. That would be our best road to peace and prosperity for all our citizens.

1. Support a standalone vote on S. 604 (the original Audit the Fed bill)
2. Oppose the overall Dodd bill
3. Support the Vitter amendment (containing the original Audit the Fed language) when the vote comes

Transcript

Ron Paul: I’m not a bit surprised that the Federal Reserve got to the Senate. I had expected Bernie Sanders to offer S 604, which was the same as HR 1207, which is the Audit the Fed Bill, and at the last minute he switched it and watered it down, and really, it adds nothing. There’s a possibility that it even makes the current conditions worse.

This is essentially the bill plus more of the bill we beat in the House Financial Services Committee; the Mel Watt bill. But this is so disappointing to me that this happened, especially since for months now I’ve worked with Bernie on this and he introduced the bill in our language, which was HR 1207.

But as we speak, this is Thursday night, they are working on this on the Senate floor, and we need to get as many messages possible to any senator you can think of, especially to Bernie Sanders’ office, that we don’t want this version. We want a true audit of the Fed. We need to know what the Open Market Committee does, and we need to know what they’re doing overseas with the agreements with central banks and financial institutions and other governments. And this amendment that is being offered does not include this.

So I am sure that Senator DeMint is working on this and may come up with an alternative. But the only thing that would be fair to the American people, after all this work and energy that we’ve put into this, is have and up-and-down vote on what was our HR 1207 in the House, which is S 604 in the Senate.

Yes, they may water it down and they may win it. But if they don’t have an honest vote on the Senate floor, to me it would be very, very discouraging. But it also shows what kind of forces we’re up against. The president doesn’t want this, the leadership on Wall Street doesn’t want it, the Federal Reserve doesn’t want it. So they’re powerful forces.

But just think of the people that do want it. You know, everybody from progressives and liberal democrats, to libertarians and constitutionalists, and the average person, so many of the Tea Party members; they all want this. They want transparency and they want to find out what’s going on at the Fed.

So it’s very, very important. It’s a crucial time. And I doubt if they’ll vote tonight, which is Thursday, but they may vote tomorrow. Who knows, they may vote on Monday. But it’s vital and urgent that we do as much as we can to bombard the Senate with information that we the people deserve to have an up or down vote on the Audit the Fed bill.

Date: 12/28/2009

Transcript

Ron Paul: Last week I mentioned in my little talk about the medical care legislation going on in the Senate, that it might be a distraction from foreign policy because I believe there were some very important events going on in the Middle East. And I brought up the subject of Yemen because at that time we had known that the Saudis had bombed Yemen and the Saudis are our close allies. We provide them with the weapons and the airplanes, and we did sanction and endorse the bombing of Yemen where there are some Al-Qaida; there is no doubt about it. Because they are scattered around the Middle East and they react to our occupation and if we’re in Afghanistan and we chase them around, they might go into Pakistan and now into Yemen. And I thought this was a very dangerous situation. Well, we’ve all heard now the story that happened on the weekend where this one individual that has come from Nigeria and then through Amsterdam and came in to Detroit and attempted to set off some type of explosive device. Most people who heard it thought it was a firecracker device, but it started a small fire which obviously is very, very dangerous.

But it seems ironic that there is so much excitement about this, and now there is talk about attacking Yemen because there is Al-Qaida there. I saw one headline that fascinated me that said, “Al-Qaida in Yemen threatens United States”. I got thinking, “United States in Yemen threatens United States”. Our presence there is the real problem. But there is now some serious talk about what we should be doing over there and dealing with the Al-Qaida, never addressing the real important subject of why is there Al-Qaida and why do these radicals get motivated in order to commit suicide and these various things. And they get motivated because we’re there in their country and then they organize and the longer we’re there the more they get radicalized against us. So what do we do? We send more troops over there. But this whole issue now about what to do about monitoring people getting on airplanes; it really scares me because we do so much already.

We spend 75 billion dollars on intelligence gathering in this country in order to protect us and make us safe. So with 75 billion dollars we weren’t able to detect this individual where there was a glaring warning sign; like his dad goes to the U.S. embassy and says, “Hey, this guy is losing it and he could commit a violent act”. So they put him on some list and totally ignore him, and he gets on an airplane and starts a fire. So you wonder just exactly what’s going on. It’s either awful stupidity or there must be an agenda. I guess we won’t know that for sure, but I am concerned about what they are going to do to the America people.

When the hijackers that bombed the twin towers were identified, it was looked into and it was found out that the FBI had reported on numerous occasions that they were being trained to fly airplanes but not to land. Nothing was done about it and that was not even a lead, so it was totally ignored. But nobody ever got punished. And now no one is going to get punished for this for not paying attention to this warning.

And so we look now to somebody else getting punished; it will be the American people. You know, they’ll add some more security on to us. First they make us take off our shoes and then our belts and then small bottles of water, and put our computers in the tray and on and on it goes. So something else is going to happen; they won’t let us get out of our seats or look at our bags from the bin above us and thinking that’s going to make us a lot safer.

I’m convinced, though, that one of the main problems we have is that we’ve turned over a very important function to the government. The government is incapable of doing what they’re supposed to do. A function like this should be controlled by the people who run the airlines. But they haven’t done that in many, many years. The airlines like all of the responsibility to fall to the government, so if anything goes wrong it’s the government’s fault. But I often thought about how efficient an armored car company is in protecting the money in those trucks, and nobody has to worry about it. But when it comes to cargo on an airplane, the government has to be responsible and the bigger the problem and the more fear that is built up, the more they take away our personal liberties. They turn us all into zombies and the American people go along with this saying, “Oh, as long as it makes us safer, I guess it’s okay to go along”.

But it’s time the American people woke up and started realizing that there is a bit of propaganda going on and quite possibly this incident will not only undermine our personal liberties, but will also accelerate our intervention and the violence occurring in the Middle East.

Date of recording: 12/22/2009

Transcript

Ron Paul: This past week the Senate has been working overtime, even throughout the weekend. And they’re very much involved in discussing medical care. It is assumed that they may even be voting on Christmas Eve. This is a very, very important subject and involves all Americans. And yet I see that this debate sometimes is just on the margin. The government has already been involved in medical care for a long time. They probably participate in about 60% or 65% of everybody getting medical care already. So the argument there is what’s it going to increase to? We know we’re not going to get total socialized medicine, and yet there is going to be more government involvement and maybe an undermining of the medical savings account. So it is very, very important. But the debate is, how much more government are we going to have, and the real debate on whether the government should even be involved or not isn’t even brought up. But even though that got almost all the attention over the weekend and it’s going to continue to be in the news, I think there are some other very important things going on around the world involving our foreign policy.

Just recently we heard about the skirmish on the border between Iran and Iraq over an oil well. A total of 11 Iranians were said to have gone into the Iraqi area, even though this well is right on the border. It happens both ways; the Iraqis go in and they occupy the well for a while, and then the Iranians go in and they occupy it.

But I don’t think this is all an accident right now because since we went into Iraq the government of Iraq and Iran are much closer together. They’re all Shiites now. And I think it’s in the interest of the neocons to stir up trouble between the Iraqi government and the Iranian government and if they can find something like this, I think they will encourage it.

And it is clear the American government has already said they strongly endorse what the Iraqi government is doing in order to confront the Iranians. Of course, there is no such thing as the Iraqi government; we are the Iraqi government. So everything that happens there is our responsibility. Just as it is with what’s going on in Yemen. The more we stir up trouble there, the so called enemies of America (those who would like to get us off their land) move around. They move from Afghanistan over into Pakistan. Then we have to go and start bombing Pakistan. But they also have moved to Yemen. So our puppet government, the Saudis, started bombing them and it is understood that some of our cruise missiles were also used or our Predators were used to do some bombing too, killing civilians and just stirring up even more trouble.

So the principle of preventive war is alive and well. And the war is spreading; it’s going into Pakistan, now it’s going into Yemen. The border dispute between the Iranians and the Iraqis is designed, I believe, to make sure that the American people are conditioned that some day we are going to have to take on the Iranian government. We have to have regime change, is our policy.

Just last week we had this major vote on putting tough sanctions on the Iranians where they could not even import gasoline, not even from another country. The theory behind these sanctions is that even if a country like China does any dealings and exports refined fuel into Iran, then we have to punish the Chinese, which is foolhardy. It’s not going to work, it causes more trouble. So we have border disputes, we have the sanctions that we have put on. And it looks like we are determined to stir up trouble there. Not only do we accuse the Iranians that someday they might have a nuclear weapon, we ignore the fact that our CIA says that they have no concrete evidence that they have worked on a bomb since 2003.

Also, just this last week it was said that the Iranians are working on a trigger mechanism for a nuclear weapon. The odds of our national security being threatened by the government of Iran is just preposterous. It’s a third world country, it can’t even survive without importing their gasoline. They don’t have an army, air force, intercontinental ballistic missiles. And they don’t have a nuclear weapon and yet we nearly get hysterical about this. And besides, where are we going to get all this money to expand our presence in the Middle East? We just passed a military budget of 636 billion dollars. Well, that’s the budget for the military that we can see and touch. But there are many other 100s of billions of dollars involved in our national defense. And it is estimated that we spend well over a trillion dollars a year maintaining our empire.

So there are the economic consequences, and there is also the threat to our national security by spreading ourselves too thin. And it seems like there is no backing off. At the present time this concentration on medical care, although I grant you is very, very important, I think what’s going on over in the Middle East has much more serious consequences not only to our financial situation, but to us as a nation and for our national security.

So my intent is to continue to pursue a sound fiscal policy of living within our means, getting the government out of our lives and out of the economy and, of course, coming up with a sensible foreign policy where we don’t just go looking for trouble. And right now it seems like those who promote the war propaganda and try to condition the American people to be prepared for the bombing of Iran or some other incident are just begging and pleading for the incident that will rally the American people so that they can support going into Iran. Hopefully we will wake up before that happens.

Date: 11/12/2009

Ron Paul: I’d like to talk about monetary policy a bit. The dollar has been in the news, gold has been in the news, and a significant event has just recently transpired. It happened on November 2nd and to me it was a very significant event. That was the day the Indian central bank announced that it had purchased 200 tons of gold from the IMF. And that was more or less the tipping point on this recent surge in the gold price.

The reason I think this is a significant date is in some ways it is almost the opposite of what happened back on August 15th, 1971, That was a very special day in monetary history and I talk about that a whole lot. That is when the world announced that gold was officially demonetized, no currency would be linked to gold, the dollar would still be the reserve standard and everything would be okay. Instead what we got was the biggest bubble in the history of mankind, which is now being deflated.

So, to me the fact that the central bank of India has now purchased this gold at the same time the IMF is getting rid of the gold and the west is getting rid of the gold, means that there is a major shift in economic power; and that is from the west to the east. And this is no surprise. Jobs have gone to the east, productivity has gone to the east, savings have gone to the east. The west has become more indebted and it’s not just the United States, it’s Europe as well.

And I think this signals the time when gold will be re-monetized. I don’t think it’s ever been demonetized in the sense. I think gold has always been money, but they pretended it wasn’t money. In the 1960s they wanted to demonetize gold and by 1971 they claimed they officially did it. And even throughout these several decades they pretend that gold is not money. At the same time, economic laws still prevail. But this announcement I think will prove to be a very significant announcement.

On this very date Geithner, Security of the Treasury, is over in Singapore meeting in an economic conference, and he’s talking about the dollar. He says, “It is the official policy of the United States government to have a strong dollar policy,” which always fascinates me. The Federal Reserve is what is in charge of the dollar, and they can double the money supply. But then we have the Secretary of the Treasury… and this is not just this time, this has been this way over the years. The Secretary of the Treasury goes before the public and says, “It is the official policy of the United States to have a strong dollar”. At the same time, they’re chiding the Chinese for having a currency that’s too strong. Which means, we want a weaker dollar against the Chinese Yuan. So on and on it goes.

And I frequently get a question, which I think is an old fashioned question, but we still get it. They ask: “Do you think the United States is going to devalue?” Well, they’re constantly devaluing. We devalue our money on a constant basis. There was a time when devaluations were official and pronounced in the sense that on August 15 there was a devaluation. They took the price of gold from $35/ounce up to $38/ounce. It was an 8% devaluation, it was a big deal. But we constantly do it. Shortly thereafter, two years later they devalued another 10% and then they tipped the price of gold up to $42/ounce. But since that time, since they claimed the dollar and gold are not connected, we’ve had constant devaluation. If you look at gold at $1,100/ounce, you’re looking at about a 97% or 98% devaluation. So it’s a constant devaluation.

So here we have a government’s official announced policy is we have a strong dollar, at the same time the real policy is constantly devaluating the dollar. And, of course, for an economy to grow you ought to have relatively stable currency. People shouldn’t have something wildly fluctuating, and certainly you shouldn’t have a currency that can be created out of thin air.

And that’s where we are today. But my concern for many, many years has been the eventual consequence of what this will have on the dollar. We’ve seen a financial crisis build, we’ve seen a lot of liquidation of debt, we’ve seen a lot of purchasing of bad debt by our government and by the Federal Reserve. At the same time, it’s all done by the creation of new money out of thin air. We can do that just so long. You can defy economic laws for a while. But just like you can keep gold at $35/ounce and you can manipulate markets, eventually the economic laws will rule.

And I think this is what will happen – is we will continue to do this. Congress has no concern; they’re willing to pass a medical care program which is going to cost trillions of dollars and pretend it won’t cost anything. They’ll always be a cost and the pressure is going to be put on the dollar. The financial obligation we have to maintain our empire and our welfare state is just overwhelming. And they’re illiquid. I mean, if we look at Medicare and Medicaid, these programs are literally bankrupt. So everything is dependent on the willingness of the world and the people to put trust in the dollar, at the same time, regardless of what our Secretary of the Treasury says, we are embarking and continue to just print the money in an unlimited fashion and that means devaluation regardless of what they tell us.

To me that is very, very dangerous. If we want to preserve our freedoms in this country we will have to address the important subject of liberty and understanding that, and what rights are all about. But we also have to understand the issue of monetary policy. We need to know more about the Federal Reserve and that is why the success we’ve had with the transparency act and auditing the Fed is so beneficial. But it looks like right now if push comes to shove, the major journals now are working very hard to downplay our efforts and to belittle what we’re doing. But the momentum is on our side and we need this information out because eventually to preserve our freedoms in this country we will also have to understand money and have monetary policy reform.

Question: Dr. Paul, what is the significance of the IMF selling?

Ron Paul: That’s a very important question because it has a great deal of significance. If the IMF is giving up the gold, this means that they are weakened. They will have less clout in saying what the next reserve currency will be. If they wanted to have an international reserve currency they would at least have to pay a little bit respect for gold. But it also means that great strength is going from west to east. Those countries that are buying gold, like China and India and these other countries, are more likely going to be in the driver’s seats for setting up the next reserve standard. In the west, western central banks and the IMF, the gold is leaving. And this means that the economic power is shifting to the east and if history is of any value to us it means that the military power may shift as well.

The 13 Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee mentioned by Dr. Paul are:

Rep. John Adler, NJ (202) 225-4765, Web Contact: Link
Rep. Travis Childers, MS (202) 225-4306, Web Contact: Link
Rep. Steve Driehaus, OH (202) 225-2216, Web Contact: Link
Rep. Alan Grayson, FL (202) 225-2176, Web Contact: Link
Rep. Rubén Hinojosa, TX (202) 225-2531, Web Contact: Link
Rep. Suzanne Kosmas, FL (877) 956-7627, Web Contact: Link
Rep. Dan Maffei, NY (202) 225-3701, Web Contact: Link
Rep. Brad Miller, NC (202) 225-3032, Web Contact: Link
Rep. Walt Minnick, ID (202) 225-6611, Web Contact: Link
Rep. Ed Perlmutter, CO (202)-225-2645, Web Contact: Link
Rep. David Scott, GA (202) 225-2939, Web Contact: Link
Rep. Brad Sherman, CA (202) 225-5911, Web Contact: Link
Rep. Jackie Speier, CA (202) 225-3531, Web Contact: Link

Transcript

Ron Paul: I’d like to give you an update on HR 1207. For the last couple of weeks I have been talking with Mel Watt, the chairman of the monetary policy sub-committee in dealing with HR 1207. And it seemed like there were reasonable discussions but I never expected a whole lot to come from this. I never expected as much support from Mel Watt as I believe I can, and hopefully still get from Barney Frank. But the way the process works is a sub-committee does get first crack at it. What happens in the full committee is a different story and we don’t know exactly what will happen. But there is no doubt that Mel Watt is not interested in HR 1207. And I don’t think he’s all that bashful about speaking for the Federal Reserve because that was in the conversation quite frequently, that he was trying to satisfy all parties including the Fed. But that shouldn’t surprise any of us. They’re very, very powerful and very, very influential.

But when he took HR 1207 and marked it up and sent it back to me, obviously, it was something I could not support. Although there were two items in it that were rather minor that both he and I have agreed to, but it’s not as significant as it should be. The one part, though, was that having a timeframe on when we could look at certain procedures of the Federal Reserve, and that was accepted. But the fact that they took away the audit itself, those numbers don’t mean a whole lot, except in one area – and that’s dealing with the 13(3) lending facilities that the Federal Reserve has more or less conceded that they’re going to have to reveal what has happened there. But that is minor. As a matter of fact, HR 1207 doesn’t even mention 13(3), we’re mainly talking about an overall audit of overall monetary policy and arrangements oversees.

So that, ironically, actually helps the Fed – putting a time limit. I believe they more or less have conceded that we would get to know what’s happening with their lending facilities, but with the time lag on there of 6 months, it actually helps them. So what happens so often in legislation is you start out with one goal and you end up making things actually worse. And that’s what they’re trying to do. This will actually help the Fed under current circumstances. So my job and our job is to stick to what we want and that is a true audit.

Now, it is likely to come up soon and next week we’re supposed to start working on the overall reform package for all the financial institutions. And because Mel Watt is the sub-committee chairman he gets to ensure his provision in there on what we’re going to do with the Fed. Now, when he does that I will have the opportunity to replace it and amend what he’s done with HR 1207, and obviously I will be doing that.

Now, it looks like we have the upper hand, at least on the surface we do. From the banking committee we have all the Republican members who have co-sponsored the bill. We have 13 Democrats, so we have a good solid majority in the committee that should support us. That’s not always the way things work. Sometimes people support legislation for political reasons back home, and at the same time when they have to vote on it, they vote differently when their arms get twisted.

I believe it’s going to boil down to how strong a position Barney Frank takes on this. And I plan to talk to him. I’m still talking with him and with cordial relations and I’m sure he’s going to have to take a position one way or the other. So, I don’t think he’s as strongly opposed to what I am doing as Mel Watt is. So the amendment will come up so if people can influence their congressmen and say you can figure out which 13 are already co-sponsors, they have to be urged. I only urge courtesy and not threats or anything like that, that the end of the world is going to come if they don’t do it what you tell them to do. I still think we have to work through this the best we can diplomatically.

Like I said, I’m not surprised this has happened, but let’s say we are successful and we get it amended, we still ought to bring it to the House floor, and then they’ll have a chance to water it down again. It goes through rules committee, that’s another place. It has to go through the Senate; it’s going to have a harder time in the Senate. Then it has to go to a conference committee and that’s another problem. And then it has to go to the President. And even if it goes through all that, we still have the courts to deal with, and courts have never been friendly to those of us who want honest money. They were never friendly to the people who held gold clause contracts and believe the government shouldn’t renege on their promises.

But, nevertheless, this is crucial. This is really important. This whole thing might take a year or two to play out, but it might only take a year for the dollar to play out. So this is why it is so crucial. If the dollar doesn’t last very long and something has to come up to replace the dollar or have a new system, we have to be in that debate and that means we have to pursue this. So it is crucial that instead of becoming a little bit discouraged with this and think that this is very strange, this is really rather typical. The special interests comes in at the last minute and this time it’s the special interest banks, and the big corporations who love to have inflationary programs that finance the military-industrial complex. And they will have to come to a decision on what they’re going to do.

So I would say that the process is working more or less the way I expected. This is going to be a very important week. But the whole issue of sound money and limited government and liberty and the Constitution – actually, that concern is not going to go away no matter what happens, in the next couple of weeks or so. But we will gain a lot of momentum if we can at least restore the language of HR 1207 in the banking reform bill which will be in the House Committee next week.