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 it’s 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 doesn’t 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 don’t 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; it’s 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, I’m vetoing it, it’s not in the Constitution… no, I’m vetoing that too, it’s 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 Paul’s agenda that are absolute dealbreakers for me – but thinking about this vision, well… I can’t deny that it appeals to some dark corner of my fiscal conservative psyche.
Baked crow placemark
Something unlike the current system ...
... i.e., politicians that weren’t for sale, followed the Constitution, kept spending under control, stopped the pork, etc. ....
But isn’t Ron Paul a RINO? He left the libertarian party to join one he professes to disdain. He’s still a libertarian, even if he changed his affilation to Republican.
What people forget is that he will have the power to hire and fire within the bureacracy. It would be hard for an agency to run with it’s leadership all fired.
Well, they had only 18000 pledges for November 5th, but 37000 actual donaters (a little less than double), with an average donation of a little bit over $100 (I think like $103). So if December 16th is a little less than double the pledges, say 60000, with an average of 103, that’s $6180000. Not counting the fact that his supporters had the opportunity to save up much longer for this one.
Or, much more likely, the Congress will simply overide a President who confuses the Presidency for a dictatorship.
Amazing how people who scream SO loud about the Consitution in every sentence demonstrate daily such a complete ignorance of how our system of Govt works.
Well, now I’ve heard everything. Dare I ask what those are?
It is a good question. Where are the Paul type Congressional Candidates?
I think you're wrong there chief. Ron Paul has never been a member of the Libertarian Party.
I would. I would applaud madly. What I cannot accept is surrender in an existential struggle with Islam and renunciation of the doctrine of forward defense. His lack of judgment in defining a foreign policy makes me question his ability to make judgments across the board.
There's no requirement that libertarians be surrender monkeys. Nothing in the philosophy of libertarianism compels surrender-monkeyness. Paul chose that and he chose wrong, big time.
Howso? Ron Paul voted for the Afghanistan operations.
Well, that sounds reasonable, I hadn’t followed the previous money bomb to close, wasn’t aware the actual number of donors was so much higher than the pledges. I’d just add that he will probably have a lower ratio of actual donations to pledges this time because not only did people have longer to save up, they had a greater chance of hearing ahead of time about the donation event.
So 31,000 pledges, maybe he’ll get 55,000 donations this time, and a slightly higher average donation, let’s give me 10% higher, $114, and we’re looking at 6.2 million.
Not bad for a donation drive, but the $10MM goal is still far off.
All in fun, a bit of mental aerobics instead of repairing my snowblower today.
That's not a fiscal conservative vision, it's a dream of freedom as we used to know it.
Nice you have feelings. Please stop confusing feelings for facts.
Like it or not Oil is a vital commodity in Industrialized Societies. Thus the Economic of the entire world rest of the free flow of Oil out of the Mid East. Remove the US from the Mid East and you allow China or Russia to control the region via their proxy Iran. Thus you turn the whole world's economy over to the control of either the Neo Stalinists or the Chi Coms.
It's not 1782 anymore. Past time the Paul bots learn to deal with the world as IT IS, not as they wish it would be.
Technology and progress have made the world an interdependent single economic mechanism. There is no ability to retreat back into some fantasy "Fortress America" and simply ignore the rest of the world. That a nice fantasy, but it just that, fantasy.
Just because the Paulbots choose to ignore the world is NO guarantee the world will choose to ignore them. They should of learned that truth on 09-11-01.
Oh but that right, the Paulbots simply stick their heads in the sand and deny what happened on 09-11-01 actually happened!
Congress either overrides it, or maybe with enough folks to sustain veto.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
This is a pathetically written sentence, does anyone know what it is supposed to mean?
I'm not trying to argue with you, but the people have to take responsibility for the government we end up.
I think you are mistaken about how the economics of oil and how the US receives oil.
Don Rumsfeld interview with Al Jazeera:
Rumsfeld: There is no master plan. We don’t run around the world trying to figure out how other people ought to live. What we want is a peaceful region.
You used the word black gold. I’ve seen the same kinds of articles and suggestions that that’s the case.
You know, I’ve been around economics long enough to know that if somebody owns oil they’re going to want to sell it. If they want to sell it, it’s going to end up in the market. And it doesn’t matter if they sell it to Country A or Country B. If they sell it, it’s going to be in the market and that’s going to affect the world price. Money is fungible and oil is fungible. This is not about oil, and anyone who thinks it is, is badly misunderstanding the situation.
Al Jazeera: But it depends on who controls the oil.
Rumsfeld: Anyone who controls it wants to sell it. It doesn’t matter. That is not a problem. If you own — If a bad person owns the oil and a good person owns the oil — different oil — and the bad person doesn’t want to sell it to you but the good person is willing to, it doesn’t matter because then the good person sells it to you. You’re not going to be buying this person’s oil but this person’s going to be selling it to somebody else. And the world price will be the same. Everyone will have the oil they need. They aren’t going to horde it, they’re not going to keep it in the ground. They need the money from the oil. So it’s not a problem.
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