Replies

So glad you libertarians are showing up,

Well, we would hate to dissapoint... :)

would you please take Ron Paul, to your party?

I am a libertarian by philosophy, not party and the Republican party has about 20% if not more libertarian minded persons, so I think Paul is right at home as a Republican as he's been for the past 20 years (with the exception of the one year hiatus). And one would think the Republican party base would cheer the only candidate who says stuff like this:

Dr. Paul, welcome to MEET THE PRESS.

REP. RON PAUL (R-TX): Thank you. Nice to be here.

MR. RUSSERT: Let's start right at the very top, the issues. This is what you have been saying on the campaign stump, "I'd like to get rid of the IRS. I want to get rid of the income tax." Abolish it.

REP. PAUL: That's a good idea. I like that idea.

MR. RUSSERT: What would happen to all those lost revenues? How would we fund our government?

REP. PAUL: We have to cut spending. You can't get rid of the income tax if you don't get rid of some spending. But, you know, if you got rid of the income tax today you'd have about as much revenue as, as we had 10 years ago, and the size of government wasn't all that bad 10 years ago. So there're sources of revenues other than the income tax. You know, you have, you have tariff, excise taxes, user fees, highway fees. So, so there's still a lot of money. But the real problem is spending. But, you know, we lived a long time in this country without an income tax. Up until 1913 we didn't have it.

MR. RUSSERT: But, but you eliminate the income tax, do you know how much lost revenue that would be?

REP. PAUL: A lot. But...

MR. RUSSERT: Over a trillion dollars.

REP. PAUL: That's good. I mean, we--but we could save hundreds of billions of dollars if we had a sensible foreign policy.

MR. RUSSERT: Well...

REP. PAUL: And if you go--if you're going to be the policeman of the world, you need that. You need the income tax to police the world and run the welfare state. I want a constitutional-size government.

MR. RUSSERT: Would you replace the income tax with anything else?

REP. PAUL: Not if I could help it. You know, there are some proposals where probably almost anything would be better than income tax. But there's a lot of shortcomings with the, with the sales tax. But it would probably be slightly better than the income tax--it would be an improvement. But the goal is to cut the spending, get back to a sensible-size government.