Posted on 12/15/2007 9:58:20 AM PST by traviskicks
A colleague laid out something of a case for Ron Paul a while back, and its been nagging at me
Imagine, for a moment, Ron Paul becomes president. (Stop laughing. This is an intellectual exercise.)
So a Democratic, or even Republican Congress completes the appropriations process, and sends President Paul the funding bill for, say, the Commerce Department. Ron Paul doesnt think we should have a Commerce Department, so he vetoes it.
Congress either overrides it, or maybe with enough folks to sustain veto. Suddenly the appropriators of both parties find themselves constantly bumping up against a president who forces them, for the first time in anyone's memory, to justify the existence of this federal department and its attending bureaucracy, much less the size of its budget. In the meantime, Paul may not appoint a Commerce Secretary, since he thinks we dont need a department. Or any of the undersecretaries. Or Department of Agriculture, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development .
Sooner or later, a fed-up Congress would try to impeach President Paul. And then the real revolution begins! Okay, no, not really.
But if you think Washington is big and bloated and unresponsive and voracious in its appetite for ever-larger, ever-more intrusive government, Ron Paul is the guy who would throw a monkeywrench into the gears. Official Washington would grind to a halt; its hard to imagine any big expansion of government with a president who made Tom Coburn look like Robert Byrd. Four to eight years, of a broken record, No, Im vetoing it, its not in the Constitution no, Im vetoing that too, its not in the Constitution.
You think about that scenario, suddenly every other guy in the race looks like the candidate of the status quo.
There are other parts of Pauls agenda that are absolute dealbreakers for me but thinking about this vision, well
I cant deny that it appeals to some dark corner of my fiscal conservative psyche.
ping
Ron Paul is an outstanding man. But his foreign policy is too rigidly isolationist, and would quickly lead to disaster. Even George Washington in his famous farewell address advocated honoring current treaty obligations. Ron Paul seems to have skipped those lines in the speech.
“I cant deny that it appeals to some dark corner of my fiscal conservative psyche.”
Me neither. I think at least that part of it would be great.
The emboldening of the enemy is what would worry me.
--while I do feel this way, for those interested in what happened when a city council composed of Libertarians took office, you can search the Leadville, CO Herald-Democrat (www.leadvilleherald.com) for the results--
The House and Senate would override every veto in a heartbeat. Oh well, it isn’t going to happen so why even speculate?
Nice try, but politics isn’t a science experiment where you can just change one variable at a time, and everything else stays the same. In the real world, everything affects everything else.
SO IF the American electorate were so fed up with the current system as to make Ron Paul President, why wouldn’t they change Congress as well?
Ron Paul could be President if he would recast himself just a bit but since he won’t he is left with a cult of Ron Paul rather than a group that will elect Ron Paul. I think Ron Paul will do much better than expected in states that allow cross party primaries. He is still stopped dead by his comments about Iraq unless he can win the support of those liberals that would find his little government approach too constraining.
As per the money bomb, there is very little chance he’ll break 4 million tomorrow.
215,00 pages views, 30,000 signed up, and the running average internet donation is about $100.
I’ve worked in a business that did mass mailing to self selected members and the response rate is usually no more than 4%, anything over 4% is considered gravy. Same basic principle that has spammers sending out the billions of spam emails.
Now, Paul’s supporters are ideologically enthusiastic, so even if of the 31,278 pledges at 4:43 pm EST 12/14/07, and 210,762 total visitors - 12/10/07, they have 7% response and maintain the $100 avg donation, he’s looking at only $1.5 million or so in donations.
More likely President Paul would get steamrolled by both sides of Congress. We're talking vetoes overriden every other week. Mr. Paul's illustrious HoR career didn't exactly develop his leadership skills.
Actually....if this was the only “fear” of a Paul presidency...it wouldnt scare me.
I think we are finding more and more that “conservatives” [sic] lose their conservatism when criticizing Paul.
If Paul wants to get rid of a government agency....conservatives should welcome it.
Maybe those “conservatives” arent really conservative when criiticizing Paul’s “less government” ideas.
Now, there are legitimate concerns with Paul. He is a little naive on foreign policy....holding hands and singing kumbaya with our enemies is not going to work. You better be prepared to deal with them militarily and diplomatically. The USA needs other nations to respect it...not be friends with it
Also, my biggest fear of Paul is that he goes back to his Libertarian ways....Open Borders, Unchecked Immigration, and Business Socialism...all hallmarks of Libertarianism. I am not sold on his opposition of NAFTA, GATT, illegals, etc...since Libertarians tend to support these things
Interesting question. Who would they change it to?
ThisNovember5th.com had around 18,000 signed up, yet Ron Paul set a GOP 1-day fundraising record of over $4,000,000.00. Hmmm...
Good point. And Americans would start looking at every vote, what the issue was and who voted to override. It would be an excellent selection process for who gets to stay and who goes in Congress in the next election.
I think that the idea that a Ron Paul presidency would be so "isolationist" that would have America sitting around contemplating its navel, is ridiculous. However, some introspection as to how we do things and why is healthy for a country and that Ron Paul would give us.
And that's when America's enemies start their move
Paul and Huck are similar in my view. I might agree with the Huckster when it comes to things such as the real importance of marriage, or turning back the slide into an insane nation of depravity. Dittos when it comes to Paul and the insane expansion of government. But, we didn't get to the point where we are overnight, and we can't change things overnight either...
Dang...you should spend a little time on youtube.com viewing videos of Ron Paul where he addresses just about everything you mentioned.
For further clarification, Ron Paul has always been a Republican, he just ran for President on the Libertarian ticket in 1988. Ron Paul is far more 'Republican' than George W Bush.
Sorry but Ron Paul is way too statist to be a Libertarian no matter what he calls himself. He favors huge increases in parts of the government bureaucracy.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.