By RonPaul.com on January 15, 2007
by Ron Paul
While the president’s announcement that an additional 20,000 troops would be sent to Iraq dominated the headlines last week, the real story was the president’s sharp rhetoric towards Iran and Syria. And recent moves by the administration only serve to confirm the likelihood of a wider conflict in the Middle East. The president stated last week that, “Succeeding in Iraq also requires defending its territorial integrity- and stabilizing the region in the face of the extremist challenge. This begins with addressing Iran and Syria.” He also announced the deployment of an additional aircraft carrier battle group to the Persian Gulf, and the deployment of Patriot air missile defense systems to countries in the Middle East. Meanwhile, US troops stormed the Iranian consulate in Iraq and detained several Iranian diplomats.
Taken together, the message was clear: the administration intends to move the US closer to a dangerous and ill-advised conflict with Iran. As I said last week on the House floor, speculation in Washington focuses on when, not if, either Israel or the U.S. will bomb Iran– possibly with nuclear weapons. The accusation sounds very familiar: namely, that Iran possesses weapons of mass destruction. Iran has never been found in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and our own Central Intelligence Agency says Iran is more than ten years away from producing any kind of nuclear weapon. Yet we are told we must act immediately while we still can! This all sounds very familiar, but many of my colleagues don’t seem to have learned much from the invasion of Iraq. House Democrats strongly criticized the Iraq troop surge after the president’s announcement, but then praised the president’s confrontational words condemning Iran. Many of those opposing a troop surge are not calling for a withdrawal of our troops from the Middle East, but rather for “redeployment.” Redeployment to where? Iran? We need to return to reality when it comes to our Middle East policy.
We need to reject the increasingly shrill rhetoric coming from the same voices who urged the president to invade Iraq. The truth is that Iran, like Iraq, is a third-world nation without a significant military. Nothing in history hints that she is likely to invade a neighboring country, let alone America or Israel. I am concerned, however, that a contrived Gulf of Tonkin-type incident may occur to gain popular support for an attack on Iran. The best approach to Iran, and Syria for that matter, is to heed the advice of the Iraq Study Group Report, which states: “… the United States should engage directly with Iran and Syria in order to try to obtain their commitment to constructive policies toward Iraq and other regional issues. In engaging with Syria and Iran, the United States should consider incentives, as well as disincentives, in seeking constructive results.” In coming weeks I plan to introduce legislation that urges the administration to heed the advice of the Iraq Study Group. Dialogue and discussion should replace inflammatory rhetoric and confrontation in our Middle East policy, if we truly seek to defeat violent extremism and terrorism.
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Posted in Foreign Policy, Ron Paul's Writings, Texas Straight Talk | Tagged Iraq, Middle East |
By RonPaul.com on January 8, 2007
by Ron Paul
Through a Freedom of Information Act Request, a private group recently obtained a copy of a 2004 agreement between the United States and Mexico that will allow hundreds of thousands of noncitizens to receive Social Security benefits. The agreement creates a so-called “totalization” plan between the two nations. Totalization is nothing new. The first such agreements were made in the late 1970s between the United States and several foreign governments simply to make sure American citizens living abroad did not suffer from double taxation with respect to Social Security taxes. From there, however, totalization agreements have become vehicles for noncitizens to become eligible for U.S. Social Security benefits. The new agreement with Mexico would make an estimated 160,000 Mexican citizens eligible in the next five years.
Ultimately, the bill for Mexicans working legally in the U.S. could reach one billion dollars by 2050, when the estimated Mexican beneficiaries could reach 300,000. Worse still, an estimated five million Mexicans working illegally in the United States could be eligible for the program. According to press reports, a provision in the Social Security Act allows illegal immigrants to receive Social Security benefits if the United States and another country have a totalization agreement. It’s important to note that Congress, like the American people, heretofore had not seen this totalization agreement. This decision to expand our single largest entitlement program was made with no input from the legislative branch of government. If the president signs it, Congress will have to affirmatively act to override him and in essence veto the agreement. This is the opposite of how it’s supposed to work. There are obvious reasons to oppose a Social Security totalization agreement with Mexico.
First, our Social Security system already faces trillions of dollars in future shortages as the Baby Boomer generation retires and fewer young workers pay into the system. Adding hundreds of thousand of noncitizens to the Social Security rolls can only hasten the day of reckoning. Second, Social Security never was intended to serve as an individual foreign aid program for noncitizens abroad. Remember, there is no real Social Security trust fund, and the distinction between income taxes and payroll taxes is entirely artificial. The Social Security contributions made by noncitizens are spent immediately as general revenues. So while it’s unfortunate that some are forced to pay into a system from which they might never receive a penny, the same can be said of younger American citizens.
If noncitizens wish to obtain Social Security benefits, or any other U.S. government entitlements, they should seek to become U.S. citizens. Also, totalization agreements allow noncitizens to quality for Social Security benefits by working in the U.S. as little as 18 months. A Mexican citizen could work here for only a year and a half, return to Mexico, and retire with full U.S. benefits. This is grossly unfair to Americans who must work more quarters even to qualify for benefits– especially younger people who face the possibility that there may be nothing left when it is their turn to retire. Those in favor of sending U.S. Social Security benefits to Mexican citizens argue that crushing poverty in Mexico demands some form of U.S. assistance to that country’s aged. While poverty in Mexico truly is deplorable and saddening, the fact remains that Congress has no constitutional authority to enact what is essentially another foreign aid program.
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Posted in Ron Paul's Writings, Social Security, Texas Straight Talk | Tagged Mexicans |
By RonPaul.com on January 1, 2007
by Ron Paul
The financial press reported last week that the euro, the new currency created only five years ago and used by most European nations, has supplanted the U.S. dollar as the most widely used form of cash internationally. There are now more Euros in circulation worldwide than dollars. This alone is not necessarily troubling, as the dollar remains the world’s most important reserve currency. About 65% of foreign central bank exchange reserves are still held in dollars, versus only about 25% in euros. And the European Central Bank faces the same inflationary pressures that our own Federal Reserve Bank Governors face, including a growing entitlement burden that threatens economic ruin as both societies age.
European politicians want to spend money just as badly as American politicians, and undoubtedly will clamor to inflate– and thus devalue– the euro to fund their creaky social welfare systems. Still, the rise of the Euro internationally is another sign that the U.S. dollar is not what it used to be. There is increasing pressure on nations to buy and sell oil in euros, and anecdotal evidence suggests that drug dealers and money launderers now prefer euros to dollars. Historically, the underground cash economy has always sought the most stable and valuable paper currency to conduct business. More importantly, our greatest benefactors for the last twenty years– Asian central banks– have lost their appetite for holding U.S. dollars. China, Japan, and Asia in general have been happy to hold U.S. debt instruments in recent decades, but they will not prop up our spending habits forever. Foreign central banks understand that American leaders do not have the discipline to maintain a stable currency.
When the rest of the world finally abandons the dollar as the global reserve currency, both Congress and American consumers will find borrowing money a more expensive proposition. Remember, America can maintain a large trade deficit only if foreign banks continue to hold large numbers of dollars as their reserve currency. Our entire consumption economy is based on the willingness of foreigners to hold U.S. debt. We face a reordering of the entire world economy if the federal government cannot print, borrow, and spend money at a rate that satisfies its endless appetite for deficit spending. At some point Americans must realize that Congress, and the Federal Reserve system that permits the creation of new money by fiat, are the real culprits in the erosion of your personal savings and buying power.
Congress relentlessly spends more than the Treasury collects in taxes each year, which means the U.S. government must either borrow or print money to operate– both of which cause the value of the dollar to drop. When we borrow a billion dollars every day simply to run the government, and when the Federal Reserve increases the money supply by trillions of dollars in just 15 years, we hardly can expect our dollars to increase in value.
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Posted in Monetary Policy, Ron Paul's Writings, Texas Straight Talk | Tagged Reserve Currency |
By RonPaul.com on December 25, 2006
by Ron Paul
Today we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace. In Iraq, however, war rages on with no end in sight. The midterm congressional elections are over, and the Iraq Study Group report is complete. Many Americans are unhappy about the war and want a change in policy. But what we are going to get from both parties in Washington is more of the same– much more– when it comes to Iraq. President Bush not only wants to stay the course, he wants to increase the number of troops in Iraq.
The “new approach” is simply escalation, with no timetable and still no definition of victory. In fact, the president promised last week that, “They can’t run us out of the Middle East,” and that we will not retreat from Iraq. Worse, he asserted that America will, “Stay in the fight for a long period of time.” According to the President, we must increase the size of our Army and Marine Corps to provide the bodies to make this possible. In other words, our troops will stay in Iraq indefinitely. Remember, we are building several huge, permanent military bases there, along with the biggest embassy in the world to serve as the command post for our occupation.
The embassy compound alone will cost more than one billion dollars. This doesn’t sound like the “new generation” warfare envisioned by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, but more like old-fashioned occupation– which requires hundreds of thousands of soldiers on the ground in Iraq. Once again, more of the same. The Pentagon, not surprisingly, has requested an additional $100 billion to keep the war going. This money will not be included in the annual budget or deficit numbers, but will be whitewashed as an “off-budget” expenditure. If all this were not enough, the president has ordered aircraft carrier groups to position themselves in the Persian Gulf in a new show of bellicosity toward Iran. Anyone who voted for Democrats last month expecting a change in our Iraq policy was sorely mistaken. Incoming congressional leaders have publicly stated their support for increasing troop levels, and Democrats have no intention of pursuing any serious withdrawal plan in Congress.
They will not withhold war funding. The war will plod on, and Democrats will call for more of the same. In Washington, the answer to every problem is always more of the same. If a war is not successful, escalate it– or even start another one. This is our only policy in Iraq, where we don’t even know whom the enemy really is. Can one in ten Americans even distinguish between Sunni, Shia, and Kurds? Unless we rethink our senseless policy of endless occupation, regime change, and nation building in the Middle East, we must expect more of the same: More troops injured or killed, more spending, more debt, more taxes, more militarism, and especially more government. Merry Christmas to all, and please share my wishes for peace on earth and goodwill toward men in 2007.
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Posted in Ron Paul's Writings, Texas Straight Talk | Tagged Christmas |
By RonPaul.com on December 18, 2006
by Ron Paul
It is our true policy to steer clear of entangling alliances with any portion of the foreign world. George Washington Last week I wrote about the critical need for Congress to reassert its authority over foreign policy, and for the American people to recognize that the Constitution makes no distinction between domestic and foreign matters. Policy is policy, and it must be made by the legislature and not the executive. But what policy is best? How should we deal with the rest of the world in a way that best advances proper national interests, while not threatening our freedoms at home? I believe our founding fathers had it right when they argued for peace and commerce between nations, and against entangling political and military alliances. In other words, noninterventionism. Noninterventionism is not isolationism.
Nonintervention simply means America does not interfere militarily, financially, or covertly in the internal affairs of other nations. It does not we that we isolate ourselves; on the contrary, our founders advocated open trade, travel, communication, and diplomacy with other nations. Thomas Jefferson summed up the noninterventionist foreign policy position perfectly in his 1801 inaugural address: “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations- entangling alliances with none.” Washington similarly urged that we must, “Act for ourselves and not for others,” by forming an “American character wholly free of foreign attachments.” Yet how many times have we all heard these wise words without taking them to heart? How many claim to admire Jefferson and Washington, but conveniently ignore both when it comes to American foreign policy?
Since so many apparently now believe Washington and Jefferson were wrong on the critical matter of foreign policy, they should at least have the intellectual honesty to admit it. Of course we frequently hear the offensive cliché that, “times have changed,” and thus we cannot follow quaint admonitions from the 1700s. The obvious question, then, is what other principles from our founding era should we discard for convenience? Should we give up the First amendment because times have changed and free speech causes too much offense in our modern society? Should we give up the Second amendment, and trust that today’s government is benign and not to be feared by its citizens? How about the rest of the Bill of Rights? It’s hypocritical and childish to dismiss certain founding principles simply because a convenient rationale is needed to justify interventionist policies today. The principles enshrined in the Constitution do not change. If anything, today’s more complex world cries out for the moral clarity provided by a noninterventionist foreign policy.
It is time for Americans to rethink the interventionist foreign policy that is accepted without question in Washington. It is time to understand the obvious harm that results from our being dragged time and time again into intractable and endless Middle East conflicts, whether in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, or Palestine. It is definitely time to ask ourselves whether further American lives and tax dollars should be lost trying to remake the Middle East in our image.
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Posted in Foreign Policy, Ron Paul's Writings, Texas Straight Talk | Tagged Noninterventionism |
By RonPaul.com on December 11, 2006
by Ron Paul
The Iraq Study Group released its report last week, giving the president several recommendations to consider in prosecuting the war. Similarly, the incoming Democratic leaders in Congress promise to urge the President to take a new course in Iraq. Meanwhile, one newly elected member of Congress was asked on national television about the Iraq war. She responded by saying she had no real opinion, and that foreign policy was “up to the president.” In each instance, it is assumed that the president will make Iraq policy.
I’m not talking about the details of actual military operations in Iraq; I’m talking about the broader policy questions of how long our troops will stay, how many will stay, and how victory will be defined. The media, Congress, and the American public all seem to have accepted something that is patently untrue: namely, that foreign policy is the domain of the president and not Congress. This is absolutely not the case and directly contrary to what our founding fathers wanted. The role of the president as Commander in Chief is to direct our armed forces in carrying out policies established by the American people through their representatives in Congress.
He is not authorized to make those policies. He is an administrator, not a policy maker. Foreign policy, like all federal policy, must be made by Congress. To allow otherwise is to act in contravention of the Constitution. Library of Congress scholar Louis Fisher, writing in The Oxford Companion to American Military History, summarizes presidential war power: The president’s authority was carefully constrained. The power to repel sudden attacks represented an emergency measure that allowed the president, when Congress was not in session, to take actions necessary to repel sudden attacks either against the mainland of the United States or against American troops abroad. It did not authorize the president to take the country into full-scale war or mount an offensive attack against another nation.
But it’s not simply the decision to wage war that is left to Congress. Consider also the words of James Madison: Those who are to conduct a war cannot in the nature of things, be proper or safe judges, whether a war ought to be commenced, continued, or concluded. They are barred from the latter functions by a great principle in free government, analogous to that which separates the sword from the purse, or the power of executing from the power of enacting laws (italics added). So Congress is charged not only with deciding when to go to war, but also how to conduct– and bring to a conclusion– properly declared wars. Of course the administration has some role to play in making treaties, and the State Department should pursue beneficial diplomacy. But the notion that presidents should establish our broader foreign policy is dangerous and wrong.
No single individual should be entrusted with the awesome responsibility of deciding when to send our troops abroad, how to employ them once abroad, and when to bring them home. This is why the founders wanted Congress, the body most directly accountable to the public, to make critical decisions about war and peace. It is shameful that Congress ceded so much of its proper authority over foreign policy to successive presidents during the 20th century, especially when it failed to declare war in Korea, Vietnam, Kosovo, and Iraq. It’s puzzling that Congress is so willing to give away one of its most important powers, when most members from both parties work incessantly to expand the role of Congress in domestic matters. By transferring its role in foreign policy to the President, Congress not only violates the Constitution, but also disenfranchises the American electorate.
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Posted in Foreign Policy, Ron Paul's Writings, Texas Straight Talk | Tagged Iraq |
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