Ron Paul Debates MSNBC’s Panel of Experts

153 Responses

By RonPaul.com on January 28, 2009





In a seemingly unbridgeable clash of two widely divergent world views, Ron Paul talks with three experts on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, repeating his assertion that we’re on the wrong path and that printing more money will eventually destroy the dollar.

Source: Morning Joe
Channel: MSNBC
Date: 1/27/2009

Transcript:

Host: Educate please this “panel of experts” here. And I say that with quotes around it. About, why this sort of throwing money at the issue bailing, bailing, bailing out, may be potentially reckless and damaging for the future of this nation’s economy.

Ron Paul: Well, in order to understand that, you have to understand how we got into this mess. We got into this mess by spending too much, borrowing too much and inflating too much. Government was too big and we had too many regulations. We had rejected the market economy for decades now. We had rejected the notion of sound money for decades. And we got into a mess this way. So what is the proposal? Spend more money, borrow more money, print more money, regulate more so. So, it makes no sense whatsoever. So we’re going to make the problems much worse. We’re doing exactly what we did in the 1930s. We are determined to take a serious recession and turn it into a depression if we don’t change our ways. When governments spend money, they spend it in a non-productive manner. And every penny the government spends, they have to take it out of a productive source of money. The money has to come from somewhere. Everybody talks about the money that’s going to be spent, and about how many wonderful things will happen, but they never say, where does that $825 billion dollars come from? That’s the question they have to ask and they have to find an answer to that to fully understand why what we’re doing is absolutely wrong.

Expert #1: Alright. Alright

Host: OK. OK.

Expert #1: Congressman, let me ask you. I understand where you’re coming from here, I think, sort of. You know, but the house is already on fire and I think no matter who…

Host: Yeah, I mean look at these headlines.

Expert #1: No matter how the fire begins. The house is on fire. The house is on fire. So let’s take one industry specifically. Let’s take the automotive industry in this country. Are you saying, spend no money on the automobile industry in this country that American automobile manufacturing, let it disappear? Continue reading “Ron Paul Debates MSNBC’s Panel of Experts”

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Did Bin Laden Bring America To Its Knees?

3 Responses

By RonPaul.com on January 28, 2009





We are handling our economy exactly as terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden wanted us to. His plan was to bog us down overseas, bankrupt our country and diminish our morale, says Ron Paul. The Congressman suggests the following solution:

  1. Change our foreign policy so that we can bring our troops home
  2. Get back to where the budget is in order
  3. Abolish the income tax and lower taxes dramatically
  4. Abolish the Federal Reserve

Source: CNN Money
Date: 1/27/2009

Transcript:

Poppy Harlow: A former presidential candidate and a Republican congressman from Texas, Ron Paul, has some serious opinions about the economy and just how it should be handled. He even says we’re doing just what Osama Bin Laden wanted us to do. Let’s bring him in to talk about that. Congressman, thanks for being here, I appreciate it. Well right, let’s just address that off the bat. We are handling our economy like Osama Bin Laden would like us to?

Ron Paul: Yes, he actually said it that he would like to drag us into a war in the Middle East. That he was pleasantly surprised that we did as much as we did after 9/11, because his plan is to bog us down and bankrupt our country and diminish our morale and he’s doing exactly the same thing because we were his ally when he used the same strategy against the Soviets. So, this is not strange, we should easily understand it, and he’s doing a very good job. We are bankrupt and he is participating in it and laughing at us.

Poppy Harlow: You know what, whether you are in favor or not in favor of big government, one thing is certain, this country is bleeding jobs. On Monday, more than 70,000 job cuts announced, more than 200,000 job cuts announced so far this year alone in just the past couple of weeks, and pretty much everyone would argue you’ve got to spend to create jobs, so, there really is a divide there. Are you proposing that we not spend in order to create jobs? Continue reading “Did Bin Laden Bring America To Its Knees?”

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Ron Paul: Crisis not caused by Free Markets

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By RonPaul.com on January 27, 2009





Ron Paul is interviewed on CNN American Morning and explains that “The best regulation is through the free market and to blame the free market for this calamity is an [...] intellectual error that has to be changed.”

Source: CNN American Morning
Date: 1/27/2009

Transcript:

Kirin Chetry: Timothy Geithner has his work cut out for him, certainly more than 70,000 job cuts yesterday alone. Today we’re already talking about companies like Corning announcing layoffs. So what can the president do about the deepening recession? Joining me now from Washington is Republican Congressman and former presidential candidate Ron Paul. Good morning Congressman, great to talk to you this morning. You know, some Libertarians called the first financial bailout the “PATRIOT Act of Finance”. Now we’re looking at a stimulus package that is going to be even bigger by all accounts. And a lot of economists seem to say that a massive spending package is needed to get the economy moving again. You’re against it, explain.

Ron Paul: Well, it’s because it’s the government that is spending. If the people were spending it that would be fine. But the government, they, the government never does anything productive. They have to take money from productive individuals and spend it in a non-productive way, so it’s just digging a bigger hole and a bigger debt and that is our problem. This stimulus package is going to cost each and every American $6,700 of more debt, so how can that be beneficial? If debt was the answer, we would have never had our problem because we’ve been doing, you know, a lot of deficit financing in the past eight years and it got us into the trouble. So all this plan of more government stimulus and more inflation, it’s absolutely the wrong way to go. We’re doing exactly what we did in the 1930s. So we are taking a recession and working very hard at trying to turn it into a depression.

Kirin Chetry: When we’re talking about 7.2% unemployment on the national average, 10% in some states that have been hit hard especially in the manufacturing sector, what is the answer then for so many people who are out of work? Continue reading “Ron Paul: Crisis not caused by Free Markets”

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Ron Paul: Afghanistan Will Be Obama’s War

21 Responses

By RonPaul.com on January 26, 2009




Source: Campaign for Liberty
Date: 1/25/2009

Transcript:

Thanks for joining us. In the last couple days, the most frequently asked question to me has been, what do I think about Obama and his foreign policy? Is there reason to be optimistic that we’ll have positive changes around the world and especially in the Middle East?

He has spoken out clearly in the campaign what his policy would be in Iraq: he wants to bring the troops home and he wants to get them out of there in 16 months. And he may draw down on those troops, but quite frankly I don’t believe for a minute that he will ever take down and remove that very offensive embassy in Iraq, nor close the military bases. So overall I don’t think the policies would change. I think if the violence escalates, which is a very significant possibility, he would be sending troops in if he had to. Americans are still being killed in Iraq and there’s still a long way to go before there’s real peace in Iraq because the Sunnis are well-armed and they are not happy by being pushed out by the Shiites, so time will tell us about that.

But Obama was very explicit about his foreign policy in Afghanistan. He said we should escalate in Afghanistan; we should have more troops in Afghanistan. And that’s where the battle is, that’s where the battle with the Al-Qaeda is, is in Afghanistan. But when he talks about Afghanistan, he talks about Pakistan as well and it’s very weak. The American missiles sent off by our CIA with drones, ended up killing 22 civilians. So they said there were possibly a few Al-Qaeda suspects there, but some women and children were killed as well.

And believe me, that doesn’t go well on his diplomatic mission to work better with those individuals and our enemies in the Middle East. A matter of fact, that’s the incentive for the Al-Qaeda to develop and grow. And as long as we have that policy over there, we can expect things to get much worse. Just the same, just as well, right now Karzai was very unhappy with the Americans today, and American missiles had killed some Afghans, and he is just holding on by his strings, you know, to the presidency of Afghanistan. And that is likely to come to an end.

So really and truly, policies have not changed there, it’s exactly the same. Escalation of war, Afghanistan will be Obama’s war. But I wish I could say that well, let’s look forward, the attitude has changed, we’re gonna be out of Iraq and we’re gonna wind down in Afghanistan, but we’re in there and we are determined to have a long term presence in the Middle East. There’s a lot of things that drives that policy and we all know about it.

The number one probably is oil, that has a lot to do with it. The neocon philosophy has a lot to do with it, Israel has a lot to do with it, as well as this idea that we have to be over there for our national security reason to fight the Al-Qaeda, but quite frankly, I am convinced, and so many other Americans are, that the reason we have to worry about the Al-Qaeda is because we’re over there. The more we’re over there and the more Muslims we kill, the greater the incentive there will be for Al-Qaeda to try to come and kill us.

We need a significant change in foreign policy. We don’t need more of the same. We need less influence of the neocons. We don’t need a perpetuation of the foreign policy of the neoconservatives, and that policy of course is, a non-interventionist, pro-American, pro-Constitution foreign policy which means we ought to mind our own business, come home and take care of our own business here at home. And besides, financially, that’s what we must do, soon.

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Fool Me Once…

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By RonPaul.com on January 26, 2009




In his latest column Ron Paul compares the new $825 billion “stimulus package” to the much-hated 2008 TARP bailout, where a bunch of failed bankers extorted hundreds of billions of dollars from a scared Congress operating under the influence of vicious lies, empty promises, and even threats of civil unrest and martial law. Unfortunately, it seems that Congress didn’t learn anything from that experience: the new stimulus package fans the voracious appetite of big government, obliterates what is left of our privacy, and scatters the wealth around as if there were no tomorrow.

Stimulus For Who?

by Ron Paul

This week the House is expected to pass an $825 billion economic stimulus package. In reality, this bill is just an escalation of a government-created economic mess. As before, a sense of urgency and impending doom is being used to extract mountains of money from Congress with minimal debate. So much for change. This is déjà vu. We are again being promised that its passage will help employment, help homeowners, help the environment, etc. These promises are worthless. This time around especially, Congress should know better than to pass anything of this magnitude without first reading the fine print. There are many red flags that I have found in this bill.

At least $4 billion is allocated to expanding the police state and the war on drugs through Byrne grants, which even the Bush administration opposed, and the COPS program, both of which are corrupt and largely ineffective programs.

To help Big Brother keep a better eye on us and our children, $20 billion would go towards health information technology, which would create a national system of electronic medical records without adequate privacy protection. These records would instead be subject to the misnamed federal “medical privacy” rule, which allows government and state-favored special interests to see medical records at will. An additional $250 million is allocated for states to nationalize individual student data, expanding Federal control of education and eroding privacy.

$79 billion bails out states that haphazardly expanded their budgets during the bubble years, but refuse to retrench and cut back, as their taxpayers have had to, during recession years.

$200 million expands Americorps. $100 million goes to “faith-and-community” based organizations for social services, which will further insinuate the government into charity and community service. Private charities are much more efficient and effective because they are directly accountable to donors, while public programs tend to get rewarded for failure. With its money, the Federal Government brings its incompetence and its whims, while creating foolish dependence. This is sad to see.

Of course the bill is rife with central planning projects. $4 billion for job training, much of which will be used to direct workers into “green jobs”. $200 million to “encourage” electric cars, $2 billion to support US manufacturers of advanced batteries and battery systems, which is yet another function of government I can’t find in the Constitution. Not to mention $500 million for energy efficient manufacturing demonstration projects, $70 million for a Technology Innovation Program for “research in potentially revolutionary technologies” in which government, not supply and demand, will pick winners and losers. $746 million for afterschool snacks, $6.75 billion for the Department of Commerce, including $1 billion for a census.

This bill delivers an additional debt burden of $6,700 to every American man, woman and child.

There is a lot of stimulus and growth in this bill – that is, of government. Nothing in this bill stimulates the freedom and prosperity of the American people. Politician-directed spending is never as successful as market-driven investment. Instead of passing this bill, Congress should get out of the way by cutting taxes, cutting spending, and reining in the reckless monetary policy of the Federal Reserve.

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Bad Bank + Bad Debt + Bad Bankers = Bad Idea

17 Responses

By RonPaul.com on January 25, 2009





In his latest speech to Congress, Ron Paul points out that allowing the liquidation of bad debt is politically unacceptable, but the alternative – dumping everything on the taxpayer – is even worse. It’s interesting that there is even such a thing as “politically unacceptable” in this day and age. One one hand, that’s good because it shows that when all is said and done, politicians are still afraid of the people, not the other way round. But it’s also bad because many Americans will fall for the “politically acceptable” alternative of bailing out everything and everyone, thereby guaranteeing a future collapse of the dollar, the nationalization of large parts of the economy, and the reduction of America’s status in the world to that of an angry third world banana republic with an aging stockpile of nuclear weapons.

Audience: U.S. House
Channel: C-SPAN
Date: 1/22/2009

Ron Paul: Mr. Speaker, I rise and support of this resolution because I don’t believe the bailouts can work, and more spending isn’t the answer. Actually, we should have talked more about prevention of a problem like we have today than trying to deal with a financial cancer that we’re dealing with. But, the prevention could have come many decades ago and many free market economists predicted even decades ago that we would have a crisis like this.

But those warnings were not heeded and even in the last ten years there have been dire warnings by people who believe in sound money and not in the inflationary system that we have, that we will come to this point. Over those decades we were able to bail out to a degree and patch over and keep the financial bubble going. But today we’re in a massive deflationary crisis, and we only have two choices.

One is to continue to do what we’re doing. Inflate more, spend more and run out more deficits, but it doesn’t seem to be working, because it won’t work, because the confidence has been lost. The confidence in the post Bretton Woods system of the dollar fiat standard, it’s gone. And this whole effort to refinance it in this manner just won’t work.

Now the other option is to allow the deflation to occur, allow the liquidation of bad debt, and to allow the removal of all the bad investments. But that politically is unacceptable, so we’re really in a dilemma, because nobody can take a hands off position. Politicians have to feel relevant and say therefore they have to do something, but there’s no evidence that this is going to work.

Now we hear that there’s a proposal and we read about it in the paper, I don’t know who came up with this, but it’s the idea of having a bad bank. Let’s create a government bad bank. And this bad bank is to take the bad debt from the bad bankers and dump these assets onto the good citizens.

Well, I think that’s a very bad idea. I mean, it doesn’t make any sense for the innocent American citizen to bear the burden. But others will say, no we’ll bail out the citizens as well, but ultimately it’s the little guy that loses on this. The bankers got 350 billion dollars we can’t account for, their assets don’t look all that much better, and yet the American people are still suffering. It didn’t create any more new jobs, so the attempt now will be maybe to redirect this, but unfortunately it will not be any more successful.

The fallacy here is that we’re trying to keep prices high when prices should come down. What do we have against poor people? Lower the price of houses! Get them down, a $100,000 house get them down to $20,000, let the poor person buy these houses. That is what we want, but this is a remnant of the philosophy of the ’30s because it was thought we were in trouble because the farmers weren’t getting enough money for their crops. So people were starving in the streets, and guess what the policy was that came out of Washington? Pile under the crops, and maybe the prices would come up. Diminish the supply and it will solve our problems. It didn’t work then, it won’t work today.

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