Posted on 07/31/2007 4:32:57 AM PDT by OrthodoxPresbyterian
Every time some conservative calls for slowing down the growth of existing entitlements, not stop them mind you, just slow them down, the Earned Income Tax Credit comes to mind, there's a hue and cry from liberals and c.s. Republicans, that it would hurt the poor. There are factors built in to entitlements that make them constantly increase, the same is true of government workers.
After all, as these programs grow like cancer does, it takes more and more government employees to handle them.
What was the cause of the failure? I asked him. He: "We didn’t realize this is a mature economy. So many permits, regulations, accounting rules, taxes! In China, we could have got this off the ground in no time, working out of back rooms and sticking up poster ads. Here — forget it! You’re killed by lawyers’ and accountants’ and agents’ fees before you get started. Stick up an ad, the city comes after you."
Something analogous applies to politics. If Washington, D.C. were the drowsy southern town that Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge rode into, Ron Paul would have a chance. Washington’s not like that nowadays, though. It is a vast megalopolis, every nook and cranny stuffed with lobbyists, lawyers, and a hundred thousand species of tax-eater. The sleepy old boulevards of the 1920s are now shadowed between great glittering ziggurats of glass and marble, where millions of administrative assistants to the Department of Administrative Assistance toil away at sending memos to each other.
Few of these laborers in the vineyards of government do anything useful. (In my experience — I used to have to deal with them — few do anything much at all.) Some of what they do is actually harmful to the nation. On the whole, though, we have settled in with this system. We are used to it. It’s not going away, absent a revolution; and conservatives are — duh! — not, by temperament, revolutionaries.
Worth repeating in full - too many non-productive rent-seekers are the cause of most of our problems. Unfortunately, it's like trying to change an oil tanker's course a hundred yards from the rocky coastline.
But if there is no one who's willing to try to turn the wheel, the tanker and the coastline are doomed. OTOH, spinning the wheel might make the rest of the crew think about the situation and realize that the ship isn't doomed. If someone reverses the engines; someone else thinks to drop the anchor; someone else starts preping the lifeboats; maybe the ship or at least the crew isn't lost.
That's the role that Ron Paul is playing. Would I like to see him nominated; sure.
Do I think he's going to be nominated; no, at least not if the GOP power brokers have anything to say.
Do I think that he could implement all the things he stands for; no, not with the Washington bureaucracy.
Do I think he'll get a surprising number of votes in the primaries; yes, if his message gets out.
Do I think that that number of primary votes will make the other candidates look at his platform versus their own; yes, if they want to prevent a third party revolt among conservatives.
Do I think he can begin to turn the GOP ship around; I hope so.
That's why Paul is attracting the attention of so many; he represents the hopes that they have for a true conservative government.
Remember that Article I, Section 8 gives Congress the power to coin money...it also prohibits the states from issuing bills of credit (in the parlance of the Founders...that was paper money). Did this mean the feds had the power to issue paper money? Of course not, the feds had the power to coin money...but nowhere was it given the power to emit bills of credit...and, hard as it is to believe now among people who don't know much about the Constitution, it was well understood at one time that any powers not expressly delegated to the federal government in the Constitution, the feds do not have.
Anyone familiar with the debates over ratification of the Constitution will remember that one of the strongest arguments the Federalists had against the Anti-Federalists was that the US Constitution would do away with the scourge of paper fiat money...the tool of free-spending, fiscally irresponsible governments everywhere....and something that was causing financial chaos in most of the colonies
So, economics aside...those who are faithful to the Constitution can only advocate a gold-backed dollar (or some other precious metal-backed currency)...either that, or advocate an actual amendment to the Constitution to give the federal government the power to issue fiat currency
Whatever. This thread isn’t exactly about a gold-based currency. That’s a side issue. We’ll have a thread to deal with that in the future.
Probably a sub-issue more than a side issue. Its one of Paul's positions (among several) that is often cited by those who dismiss him as a "kook". The derision directed as calls for a return to a gold standard, even among conservatives, is an indication of how far America in 2007 is from a government operating under the Constitution. A gold-backed currency was, at one time, accepted as the only Constitutionally legitimate form of money. Calls for a fiat currency would have been dismissed as "bizarre" and "kooky" just as calls for a gold-backed currency are now. The same holds true for many of Paul's positions (eliminating the IRS, returning to a non-interventionist foreign policy, doing away with the federal entitlement system, etc.).
This is RP's problem...and the problem of any candidate who is faithful to the Constitution. I think that's the point Derbyshire is making
Even if he doesn’t win, Ron Paul can do for modern right wing politics what Barry Goldwater did in losing in 1964.
Provide the impetus for a future return to constitutionalist/libertarian limited government ideology.
Of course, he has to at least do well enough to send a scare into both the libs and the Big Govt GOP folks.
Amen
I recently heard Ron Paul being interviewed by Edd Hendee on KSEV in Houston. Paul talks a good talk, but apparently accomplishes little in office. Hendee held Paul’s feet to the fire on some hot issues and Paul’s response sounded like a weasle. Too bad, I wanted to believe Paul was better than that.
He’s the only true Reaganite in the race. I’m old enough to remember the 1980 GOP National Platform which called for returning to the Gold Standard. Ron Paul is responsible for it being included in the platform and he served on Reagan’s June 1981 Gold commission.
“That’s the role that Ron Paul is playing. Would I like to see him nominated; sure.
Do I think he’s going to be nominated; no, at least not if the GOP power brokers have anything to say.
Do I think that he could implement all the things he stands for; no, not with the Washington bureaucracy.
Do I think he’ll get a surprising number of votes in the primaries; yes, if his message gets out.
Do I think that that number of primary votes will make the other candidates look at his platform versus their own; yes, if they want to prevent a third party revolt among conservatives.”
Exactly, the Author makes a key mistake, they assume that we expect that Dr. Paul will win the nomination, for the record, I don’t think he will.
However, next fall when Hilliary and Rudy are duking it out over who gets to cut up the American Taxpayer the most, to pay for the most hairbrained Govt.Inc program, there will be some who can say:
“I supported Ron Paul, you guys got what you deserved, at least we maintained our principles, after 16 years of Bill Clinton and George Bush, we chose a conservative, you chose who you thought could win.”
Ron Paul as Republican Presidential Nominee might lead to a flamming Gotterdaminrung, but at least we shake off the Rhinos and the lite weights.
I agree with your post, but I take issue with your tagline. The NRST taxes all goods, including goods made in Communist China at the same rate as goods made by Americans and Mexicans will truck both of them in the NAU. Tariffs and the NAU are mutually exclusive.
But it also eliminates the tax burden on American manufacturers in competition with imports. That, and the creation of a tax haven which will attract a fortune in foreign investment money, are what will make the NAU a moot point if FairTax is enacted.
Not that the control freaks will stop trying.
But ultimately yes, I would prefer tariffs and no Federal taxation, the Constitution originally mandated.
Paul PING back at ya bro!
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