Ron Paul on CNN’s American Morning

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By RonPaul.com on February 16, 2009





Ron Paul was interviewed on CNN’s American Morning today. He provides his comments about the stimulus package, the rebuilding of America’s infrastructure, and the Republican failure to reverse the spending bubble when they were in power.

Show: American Morning
Channel: CNN
Date: 2/16/2009

Transcript:

Kiran Chetry: You say that the legislative process around this bill was quote “atrocious.” President Obama, when he was a candidate on the trail, pledged that public would have 5 days to review legislation online before he signed it, and of course as we all know this bill was more than a thousand pages long. You said your staff did not have a chance to read any of it until after midnight the night before and that there were only 5 hard copies available? What was going on?

Ron Paul: There were 5 copies available to the House, I think 5 to the Senate, and that wasn’t available until the House opened at noontime. So no, essentially it was not available to us and who could stay up all night and read a thousand pages? So obviously it was done, you know, like business as usual. Things have been going on like this for a long time but this one was a little bit worse and it was bigger than usual, so it was not a very good day for America.

Kiran Chetry: So besides the problems that you have with how it went down, you also have major policy concerns and differences with what you think the stimulus will do. You say that you just don’t think it’s going to stimulate the economy, that it’s going to actually prolong the agony. Why do you feel that way? Continue reading “Ron Paul on CNN’s American Morning”

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Against All Enemies, Foreign and Domestic

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By RonPaul.com on February 16, 2009




In his latest column Ron Paul speaks out against a potential reinstatement of the draft, in whatever form it may occur. Most enemies of liberty are located within a 10 mile radius of Capitol Hill, which obliterates the argument that the draft is needed to protect liberty from enemies abroad. To solve the “problem” of low troop levels, Ron Paul proposes to focus on defense rather than world domination, and calls for better treatment of military personnel and veterans so that genuine volunteers will not be discouraged from joining. Finally, “voluntary” national service is only the first step on the road to mandatory service, and should therefore be opposed.

On Reinstating the Draft

by Ron Paul

Much has been made by the new administration of the idea of national service and volunteerism. While service to one’s community is certainly admirable, it is not the federal government’s place to “encourage” or promote volunteerism. Moreover, there are troubling signs that national service could transition from voluntary to mandatory, or de facto mandatory, such as the requirement of service in order to be granted a diploma, or something along those lines.

Involuntary servitude was supposed to be abolished by the 13th Amendment, but things like Selective Service and the income tax make me wonder how serious we really are in defending just basic freedom. The income tax enslaves workers for nearly 4 months out of a year by garnishing what amounts to all their wages in that period of time. A military draft could demand your very life, without your consent. This should be unthinkable in a free society.

Proponents of reinstating the draft claim it is needed to protect liberty from enemies abroad. But what about the enemies of liberty right here at home? I am convinced that there are more threats to American liberty within the 10 mile radius of my office on Capitol Hill than there are on the rest of the globe. If we would get our troops off of foreign soil, those perceived enemies of our liberty abroad are much more likely to stand down and let us be. We have more than enough troops to mind our own business and defend ourselves. It is only for world domination that we have a troop shortage.

Nevertheless, some think recruiting for our military is too low and that the younger generation will not answer the call of duty willingly, and must be drafted by force. I take extreme exception to this characterization of young people today. First of all, I believe they correctly see that foreign policy, as unpopular as it has been under Bush, is not significantly changing under Obama, and has little, if anything, to do with defending the United States, and certainly not the Constitution. Second, many see friends and acquaintances who have voluntarily enlisted, and have taken note of how the soldier, the veteran is treated. Perhaps rather than blaming younger generations for being selfish, older generations should remember their promises to those who volunteer for military service and be mindful of how they are treated. Every homeless vet by the side of the road, every suicide, every report of substandard conditions in veteran hospitals is a sign of how we let our military down. Perhaps we should look to those issues if we have problems with military recruitment, rather than to trample freedom in the name of protecting it.

If that is not enough reason, consider that most in the military are against a draft. There is a vast difference between serving alongside another volunteer, and serving alongside a reluctant conscript. Americans need to be on the lookout for any propaganda trying to ease us back into the draft. Too often a flawed foreign policy prompts the need for a draft. Abolishing the Selective Service is one thing we could do to counter those efforts.

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Ron Paul on Money, Banking and the Crisis (1988)

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By RonPaul.com on February 15, 2009





In this 1988 interview, Ron Paul talks about money, banking and the Federal Reserve, and predicts the current financial crisis.

Show: American Power Structure
Date: August 1988

Transcript:

Voiceover: American Power Structure. We’re joined by John Cone.

Frank Morrow: Ron there’s an old statement I’ve read heard about people saying, in Congress, that banks never lose.

Ron Paul: Well, I think that’s a general statement. I think the big bankers never lose, but I think a little banker right now is losing a lot because a lot of little bankers are getting closed down; the big banks are gobbling them up. I don’t think David Rockefeller is going to lose, I don’t think he’s going to be out selling apples or pushing pencils anytime soon. But a lot of bankers that are being wiped out at the state level are losing, but the big banking power structure seems to have control because they’re on the inside and they have control of money and they know what policy is going to be down the road.

Frank Morrow: Can you specify this structure that you’re talking about, this power structure?

Ron Paul: Well, the power structure basically is made up of a lot of very powerful business and corporate leaders in the country, and in particular they have formed their organizations. They’ve been around for a good while and they don’t even hide it anymore, you know, the Trilateral Commission as well as the Council of Formulation. No matter what, which president which party is in power, they will appoint to the major offices members of these two committees, and they always have control of the Federal Reserve System. So the Wall Streeters, the big bankers, have inside information as far as what is happening and what’s going on.

And control over money is pretty significant because if you can control money you’re really controlling one half of every single transaction, so that is a tremendous amount of power. But it doesn’t look like we’re going to have any independence. They say the Federal Reserve is independent, but that’s a bunch of nonsense. The protection that the founders gave us to try to keep us from this happening never authorized the Central Bank and they were very strict in the writing of the Constitution to limit the power of Congress to only to the minting of gold coins, to allowing only gold and silver to be legal tender, and prohibiting the printing of paper money. Continue reading “Ron Paul on Money, Banking and the Crisis (1988)”

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Ron Paul on Fox Business

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By RonPaul.com on February 15, 2009





Ron Paul was interviewed on Fox Business this Saturday. He talks about the stimulus package and the dirty tricks surrounding its passage.

Channel: Fox Business
Show: Your Questions, Your Money Live
Date: 2/14/2009

Transcript:

Ron Paul: Our greatest export has been the dollar and of course our productivity has gone down over the years, so yes they have served their interest in the short term, and they have served our interest. But ultimately they will give in because otherwise Americans wouldn’t have to work anymore. I mean why worry about it, we’ll just, if 9 trillion dollars has stimulated the economy and they’re still buying our debt that’s great, 20 trillion dollars, you know, it will end. Nobody knows when that will come, it might be with maybe something happening in international affairs or military affairs and maybe a major crisis that we can’t handle, then people will lose confidence in us as being the super power.

Anchorwoman: Congressman, who is or was worse on spending: the current administration or the last one? Because you’re fair to spread the blame around.

Ron Paul: Well this one hasn’t had enough time. I mean at the rate they’re going they might be able to surpass the last one but I put a lot of blame on the last administration. But I date it back a little bit further. I date it back to the last 20, 28 years and Republicans have had the presidency 20 of those years and there’s never been one bill vetoed. But the Democrats are big spenders, but if you look at the 8 years with Clinton, the spending wasn’t growing quite as fast and the budget was in better shape, so to say that this is all the Democrats’ fault is wrong. All I can say is that the Republicans are doing a much better job in opposition than they were when they were in charge.

Anchorman: Hang on there, we’re getting an email. Kathy from Michigan writes in wondering, “Why couldn’t the stimulus debt be offered to the American people over the next few years like a war bond? We’re paying for it in taxes anyway, why not earn the interest?” You want to take that Congressman? Continue reading “Ron Paul on Fox Business”

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Stimulus Bill: An Atrocious Way To Legislate

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By RonPaul.com on February 14, 2009




Date: 02/13/2009

Transcript:

Ron Paul: “I just left the House floor and I voted against the so-called stimulus package. Obviously, it’s not going to stimulate anything other than the growth of big government. It looks like it will not be difficult to pass, and the Democrats have the vote. One thing I could say about the Republicans, they have stuck together and they’ve given some good speeches. To me it’s just a shame they didn’t start talking like this and voting like this about eight years ago, they would be a lot better off. But anyway, they’re doing the right thing right now, they are opposing it and to me that’s very good.

But you know, one thing in this particular bill that nobody seems to be talking about is the increase in the national debt. The increase in the national debt by $789 billion – almost $1 trillion, and now the national debt limit is over $12 trillion. But this day and age, people are just passive spending this money and hardly even thinking about it. They deal with trillions like they used to deal with billions, so it means a lot of trouble down the road.

You know, the process of this legislation was a little bit more annoying than most of the things that we do here. This bill turned out to be over a thousand pages. My staff had no chance to read any of it until 12:30 last night. Which means that somebody would have to stay up all night reading it, which would’ve been impossible because there was no complete version, no printed version, there were only 4 hard copies, 5 hard copies available to the House. I couldn’t even have gotten a copy of it if I had wanted to.

And it’s still, some of the bill is still in handwriting. So this to me is just atrocious way to legislate. And, another part of the process that annoys me at knowing is that I know many of you have heard about what was in the bill, and I could get more information from the news than I could from my staff or from the staff of the committees. But what happens is, conservative staffers who know a little bit about a bill will leak a large portion of the bill to certain groups, the same way with the liberal democrats. There are only about 20 people in the whole Senate and the Congress who really deal and know anything that is going on, but outsiders actually get an opportunity to look at this before we get it.

So, it is an atrocious way to legislate, but I guess that’s appropriate, they’re doing atrocious legislating, and what they’re doing is to me atrocious: running up the debt like this, printing the money, and just placing this burden on the American people but quite frankly, this can not be helpful to the economy. Long term, this is doing exactly what they’ve been doing for many, many decades and the reason we’re in this mess. Someday though I think the American people will wake up out of necessity, because the bankruptcy of the country is at our doorstep and the destruction of the dollar is the thing that will finally wake us up.”

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Ron Paul Asks Congress: “What If…?”

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By RonPaul.com on February 13, 2009




Channel: C-SPAN
Date: 02/13/2009

Transcript:

Ron Paul: “Madam Speaker, I have a few questions for my colleagues.

What if our foreign policy of the past century is deeply flawed and has not served our national security interest?

What if we wake up one day and realize that the terrorist threat is the predictable consequence of our meddling in the affairs of others, and has nothing to do with us being free and prosperous?

What if propping up repressive regimes in the Middle East endangers both the United States and Israel?

What if occupying countries like Iraq and Afghanistan and bombing Pakistan is directly related to the hatred directed toward us?

What if someday it dawns on us that losing over 5,000 American military personnel in the Middle East since 9/11 is not a fair tradeoff with the loss of nearly 3,000 American citizens no matter how many Iraqi, Pakistanian, Afghan people are killed or displaced?

What if we finally decide that torture, even if called “enhanced interrogation technique”, is self-destructive and produces no useful information and that contracting it out to a third world nation is just as evil?

What if it is finally realized that war and military spending is always destructive to the economy?

What if all war-time spending is paid for through the deceitful and evil process of inflating and borrowing?

What if we finally see that war-time conditions always undermine personal liberty?

What if Conservatives who preach small government wake up and realize that our interventionist foreign policy provides the greatest incentive to expand the government?

What if Conservatives understood once again that their only logical position is to reject military intervention and managing an empire throughout the world?

What if the American people woke up and understood that the official reasons for going to war are almost always based on lies and promoted by war propaganda in order to serve special interests?

What if we as a nation came to realize that the quest for empire eventually destroys all great nations?

What if Obama has no intention of leaving Iraq?

What if a military draft is being planned for for the wars that would spread if our foreign policy is not changed?

What if the American people learned the truth, that our foreign policy has nothing to do with national security, that it never changes from one administration to the next?

What if war in preparation for war is a racket serving the special interests?

What if President Obama is completely wrong about Afghanistan and it turns out worse than Iraq and Vietnam put together?

What if Christianity actually teaches peace and not preventive wars of aggression?

What if diplomacy is found to be superior to bombs and bribes in protecting America?

What happens if my concerns are completely unfounded?

Nothing.

But what happens if my concerns are justified and ignored?

Nothing good.

And I yield back the balance of my time.”

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