Posted on 09/01/2011 12:44:44 AM PDT by Absolutely Nobama
One of the lies Ron Paul's more vocal supporters (his army of cyberstormtroopers) will tell you until they're blue in the face is that the Shame of Texas has a strict constructionist view of the Constitution. They'll hiss, scratch, and burn a cross on your blog for daring to point out the obvious. In other words, they're like Chairman Obama's Drones, big on fascisti passion, small on critical thinking.
Let's take a stroll down Memory Hole Lane, shall we ? Here is the text of Ayatollah RuPaul's interview with Neil Cavuto of FOX News back in 2009:
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NEIL CAVUTO, HOST: Speaking of a lot of money, the battle about the money they're spending on Capitol Hill and, ironically, this guy is being targeted as maybe spending the most or at least earmarking the most for his constituents. He says it isn't fair.
But we thought it only fair to give him his due and explain what is going on. I'm talking about Texas congressman and former presidential candidate, Ron Paul.
Congressman, the rap is that you're a porker, that — that a lot of pork, $73 million-plus, went to your district. Is that true?
REP. RON PAUL, R-TEXAS: Well, it might be.
But I think you're missing the whole point. I have never voted for an earmark. I voted against all appropriation bills. So, this whole thing about earmarks is totally misunderstood.
Earmarks is the responsibility of the Congress. We should earmark even more. We should earmark every penny. So, that's the principle that we have to follow and the — and the responsibility of the Congress. The whole idea that you vote against an earmark, you don't save a penny. That just goes to the administration and they get to allocate the funds.
CAVUTO: Well, then, who — who — who proposes the bridge or the highway or the school? How does that even get in there?
PAUL: I have no idea. But the most important thing is to have transparency.
If you don't earmark something, then somebody else spends it and there's no transparency. So, the principle of the earmark is very crucial. But we need more earmarks.
The reason that we don't have — didn't have earmarks, you know, in that $350 billion on TARP funds...
CAVUTO: Right.
PAUL: We needed to earmark every single thing. We need to earmark every single thing the Fed does. So, this whole thing, this charade — this is a charade.
CAVUTO: No, no, I understand.
But you know what? It just strikes people as a little weird, Congressman, because, you know, you champion and rail against government waste. And I know you rejected and voted against this package. But, yet, your constituents are going to benefit to the tune of more than $73 million in various projects from this package.
So, it's kind of like you're having your cake and eating it, too.
PAUL: But — but, Neil — Neil, you're — you're missing the whole point.
The principle of the earmark is our responsibility. We're supposed to — it's like a — a tax credit. And I vote for all tax credits, no matter how silly they might seem. If I can give you any of you of your money back, I vote for it. So, if I can give my district any money back, I encourage that.
But, because the budget is out of control, I haven't voted for an appropriation in years — if ever.
CAVUTO: But would you argue, then, sir, that, when John McCain was here saying the whole earmark thing itself is what's out of control?
PAUL: Oh, no, no. He — he — he totally misunderstands that. That's grandstanding.
If you cut off all the earmarks, it would be 1 percent of the budget. But, if you vote against all the earmarks, you don't cut one penny. That is what you have to listen to. We're talking about who has the responsibility, the Congress or the executive branch?
I'm saying, get it out of the hands of the executive branch. Just listen again about what I have said about the TARP funds. We needed to earmark every penny. Now we gave them $350 billion, no earmarks, and nobody knows...
(CROSSTALK)
CAVUTO: You're right about...
PAUL: OK. But then I'm right about the whole issue.
(CROSSTALK)
CAVUTO: But are you saying, then — are you saying, then, Congressman, that the moneys that you appropriated, whether for the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, the Texas City Channel, Wallisville Lake, the City of Bay City, that rehab center — that that's money in the aggregate that you would have called waste?
PAUL: It's the kind I don't vote for, because I don't think the federal government should be doing it. But, if they're going to allot the money, I have a responsibility to represent my people.
If they say, hey, look, put in a highway for the district, I put it in. I put in all their requests, because I'm their representative.
But, if you put an earmark for a bridge in Iraq, it's not called an earmark. If you build military equipment in somebody's city...
CAVUTO: So, you don't think their requests are wastes? You don't think their requests are wastes?
PAUL: Well, no, it's — it's — it shouldn't be done. There's a better way to do it.
CAVUTO: Right.
PAUL: But, if you're going to spend the money, the Congress has the responsibility. It's better to spend it on a bridge here than spend it on a bridge in Iraq, and blow it up, and then build it up again.
Those are the kind of earmarks they don't count.
CAVUTO: All right.
PAUL: So, you have to count...
CAVUTO: All right, Congressman.
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/your-world-cavuto/2009/03/11/rep-ron-paul-defends-his-earmarks-spending-bill#ixzz1Wg9BNOZX
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Now to be fair to Reichsfuhrer Paul, he does make a lot of sense in some spots in the above interview. He was a 1000% right about TARP and building bridges in Iraq. No one can argue those points, and I applaud him for saying it. (And he also took a shot at the horrid John McLame, so kudos on that, too.) However, as I've written in a previous column, his view of public spending is almost Marxist. (Pork spending is in no way, shape, or form a "tax rebate".)
Not only is that knd of talk Marxist-lite, it's also something the Father of the Constitution, James Madison, would have vehemently disagreed with.
In 1792, Madison said:
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"If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor;they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, everything, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police,would be thrown under the power of Congress."
(This statement was made in response to a bill that was proposed in Congress to subsidize cod fishermen. Even in the 1790's, there were slobs who wanted to "spread the wealth around.")
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Interesting note: I found this quote in The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History by Thomas Woods, Jr. (Another "Libertarian" who has a fondness for appearing on Iran's Islamonazi state-run television station, but that's another rant for another time.) It's also a book Sheikh Ali-Paul wrote a blurb for. He writes:
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"Knowing our past is essential if we are to preserve our freedoms. Professor Woods's work heroically rescues real history from the politcally correct memory hole. Every American should read this book."
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Maybe the good doctor should read this book again. We the People get it, he sure doesn't.
The money has already been taxed for fy 2010, and the budget was passed in 2009. In 2010, they wrote the budget for 2011, for which taxes will be collected in 2012. Until the tax money rolls in, it will be financed with bonds. In each of those budgets, there is pork, earmarks, whatever you want to call it, along with the larger scale thievery along those lines, all of which come to substantially more than 1% of any budget. Strict construction of the Constitution requires that Congress only enact laws and spend money for things that are necessary and proper for the exercise of its specifically enumerated powers. Paul doesn’t do that. Neither does any other Congressman. But Ron Paul claims to, and that’s a myth. I rest my case.
IF the earmarked miney was going back to his district as say, a tax rebate, that his district could use as they sa fit, that is one thing. But that isn’t how earmarks work. The money is designated for specific projects, many of which are vanity, most of which are a waste and a drain, even on the district when the earmarked money runs out. Remember the “Big Dig”? The “Bridge to Nowhere”? The study of pork rinds?
‘scuse the typos.
But he votes against the spending bills, so if every Congressman voted like him, there would be no earmarks. I rest my case.
Precisely. That's logical for anyone who wants to understand it. But you have to understand the motivation for those calling Ron Paul "a hypocrite" on this earmark issue.
Ron Paul has always been, not just a winner, but a formidable winner in his District. To try to make Ron Paul less electable, his political opponents -- both Democratic and Republican -- tried to smear and scare Ron Paul into not asking for earmarks for his District. It didn't work. He isn't an idiot. He didn't fall for it. He won reelection to the House in the last election with 70% of the vote.
Since he's been running for president, Ron Paul's detractors have taken up to using the same old propaganda they tried in his District. They understand it. They just want to recruit anyone who doesn't.
When the good doctor voted to raise taxes on the rich and sided with the Democrat Party on the Bush Tax cuts, he voted to raise taxes on the so-called rich.
It’s cheap and easy to vote against something you know will pass with or without you. I’d like to see a consistent effort by lawmakers to write an alternative bill without all the tricks. They only do this every once in a while to make a statement, like in 1994, or when President Ron kept the spending from growing faster than GNP for a while (”Cuts” in Washingspeak). Mean time the game goes on, as it has long before the Tea Party existed. If there were a regular annual rebuttal budget, one day there will be a President who will adopt it, who might get elected based on a promise to sign that and not the pork budget.
That is a lie. Paul voted for the Democrat bill to cut taxes on the middle class and he also voted for a related Republican bill to cut taxes for everyone. Paul always vote to cut taxes. Stop lying.
Americans for Tax Reform comments below:
“In our opinion, Cong. Paul did not vote for a tax hike. The bill Congress voted on yesterday is a tax cut relative to 2011 law, which assumes everyone’s taxes go up. By preventing some people’s taxes from going up, this would score out as a tax cut.”
Are you serious? Are the Paulbots on this page serious? They talk flippantly about nothing being wrong with earmarks, while holding up Paul as the beacon of economic Conservatism. They always use terms like “well, RP supports this, or RP said that”. They always send youtube videos to prove their points, even when his voting record is contrary to what he says. And, his happy supporters just drink in the kool-aid. Ok, so earmarks might be just 1% of the budget, but he says that he is just returning the money taken from the people of his district BACK to those people. Yet, he fails to mention that this earmark money comes from OTHER taxpayers like you and me. He is against waste, but votes for projects in his district ALL while saying he is doing this because he Constituents want him to do so. Then, he turns around and says it should be his job to appropriate money for his district, but claims to be a steadfast supporter of states right...so, why not leave this money to the STATE to decide? RP is stark raving mad and his supporters are worse.
BTW, as someone pointed out earlier, I am sick and tired of hearing the Paulbots say “and RP has never voted for a tax hike”. The problem is that he vote for TONS of earmarks (wasteful spending) KNOWING full well whether or not a bill will pass. This is nothing more than politics at its worst. Sure, he doesn’t vote for the bill in the end because he doesn’t have to...it makes him look fiscally responsible. In the meantime, he is up with Pelosi packing the bill, that he will later oppose, with TONS of earmarks. Hypocrisy.
“In addition to never voting for an unbalanced budget, Ron Paul often touts his record of never having voted for a tax increase. Some people are arguing that this streak ended yesterday when Paul, joined by Paul-influenced Republicans Jimmy Duncan and Walter Jones, voted for the House Democrats’ extension of the Bush tax cuts for the middle class.”
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/12/03/did-ron-paul-vote-for-a-tax-in
“In the space of 24 hours, Rep. Ron Paul (R., Texas) has voted for tax hikes, against censure for Charlie Rangel, and defended Julian Assange.”
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/254459/ron-pauls-idiem-mirabilisi-daniel-foster
It is interesting that you won’t retract your lie.
Money that is not earmarked for anything is free money for Obama to dump into ACORN. Please stop shilling for Obama’s financial scams and Communist influence-peddling. Thanks.
Right, so because your cult leader is a hypocrite, you call me a Obama shill? You are definitely a Paulie. BTW, is it Constitutional for O to do this?
Very little O does is Constitutional. What you are advocating in real-world terms is that O have more cash to spread around to his crooked buddies. If that isn’t shilling for Obama; I don’t know what is.
So, it is better for me to have MY cash spread around to Ron Paul’s buddies?
What lie ? I’m not following....
Which buddies? Be specific.
Are you asking if it’s better to build a road in Texas than register dead Mexican Obama voters and buy Van Jones a summer house?
Are really you that easily confused, or just lying again?
Nope. I stand by what I wrote. I’ve researched it and provided links.
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