This is my response to Ron Paul on his “plan.” I’m not a fanboy or Paulbot, so if you are you should probably stop reading. I’m also not an objectivist, as he is. I’m nowhere near selfish enough and have a grounding in reality, as well as knowledge of history, so Objectivism holds no allure for me.
Another reason that I have no love for the man as a candidate, is is opposition to established rights for minorities and women and children. Yes yes... I know. He refuses to say that he'll chain women in kitchens and blacks in cotton fields, yet he has no problem destroying protections and laws that prohibit discrimination. He uses the ridiculous "state's rights" line instead. So if Texas wants to use capital punishment on women who have a miscarriage, it's just AOK with him. If a state decides to cap wages for labourers at 50cents per day, and nearly all of them are black, he'd be just fine with it. Being that companies will be allowed to hire whomever they choose and he cares nothing for education, we can also look forward to children in mines and fields from dawn til dusk, because companies might decide that adults are too much trouble.
My comments are all in bold and his are italicised but otherwise unaltered and unedited from his article.
PAUL: One year to go
By Rep. Ron Paul -The Washington Times Thursday, November 3, 2011
I firmly believe the American people are serious about cutting spending and fixing our debt crisis now. Those struggling to make ends meet and provide for their families while also trying to save for the future know we must change course immediately.
While this might be true to some extent, planning on giving away what little people do have left to corporations and billionaires will work directly against the very people who are struggling. Only in the imaginary “Libertarian Land” will allowing corporations to own everything and repealing any and all worker protections be a good thing for anyone except the millionaires and billionaires... a club to which I can’t help but notice that you belong.
I’m not running for president merely to trim a little here and there from our bloated federal budget. Instead, I have offered the boldest, most specific and most comprehensive solutions in the history of American politics to restore our economy and once again make America the most innovative, competitive and prosperous nation in the world.
Yes it is bold and comprehensive, yet neither of those actually mean that it would work. The over-whelming majority of economists, both world wide and domestic, have read your plan and condemned it. Even though your fan club insists that a “We Hate Paul” campaign is the reason, the real reason is that some people are far better educated than you and have actually made efforts to understand economics and history.
We face no problem that cannot be solved by reaffirming our trust in the fundamental principles of freedom, limited constitutional government and individual responsibility.
The Constitution is often referred to, rightly, as a living document. The reason for this is simple, we are no longer a loose collection of states held together by treaty alone. In the early days of America the problems were simple and as a result we have a rather simple constitution. Your problem Ron, is that you do not see the current world as any more complex than a few million people bound together only by a desire to no longer be a colony of England.
The nation has changed. We have watched corporations and governments destroy environments, enslave people, murder people, and prevent common members of society from benefitting from the American experience. Through governmental changes and constitutional amendments we have stopped much of the destruction and abuse that you wish to see continue.
As a candidate, I pledge that not only will my first 100 days as president be dedicated to reinstituting these core values from the moment I take my oath but that my entire time in office will be devoted to protecting our liberties and removing the burden of an out-of-control government from the people’s backs.
Read above…
Starting on Day One, I will begin implementing my Plan to Restore America, which cuts $1 trillion in spending during my presidency’s first year alone and delivers a fully balanced budget by Year 3.
This is exactly why you are accused of having no ideas other than “Sunshine and Lollipop” concepts. This act alone, removing 1 trillion dollars from the economy, would devastate America. It would make the recent recession look like a view of heaven. The “3year” plan is just nonsense. I’m sorry to inform you, but you will have to get all of this through congress, and none of them like you. You will have no political capital to work with and you will be demanding that Congress, that place you show up to work at once in a while, abrogate their responsibilities and jobs to you.
This plan is about priorities. Politicians play a game in which they give lip service to the voters’ concerns only to sacrifice a strong national defense, the needs of our veterans and the promises made to our seniors at the altar of attaining more power once in office.
I don’t disagree that our veterans are treated poorly and that seniors are also. I’m also in agreement that politicians should stop paying lip service to constituents. Yet, how are you different? You make grand statements and say that you stand for Americans while your policies and cuts will do only one thing, disenfranchise tens of millions of Americans and make most people virtual slaves of corporations… except for those who will be actual slaves.
I will lead a national discussion on how we might tweak cuts, and I will work with coalitions to make them in the fairest way possible and to plan the necessary transitions.
Either you are lying here, or you lied above. You have led no discussions, you have done the exact opposite. Economists and others who have an understanding of money and economies have all panned you soundly. Not for “bucking the trend” or whatever else you and your supporters claim, but for your plan being impossible and destructive. Perhaps you should have actually spoken to an economist before making this plan? Perhaps trying to make a coalition in your current job?
A Paul presidency will deny the politically connected the spot they have carved out at the American people’s expense. By immediately repealing such regulatory nightmares as Obamacare, Dodd-Frank and Sarbanes-Oxley, we will start to break the corporatism that places special interests over the average American.
And here you present two opposing concepts together as if they were the same. Removing restrictions and regulations will INCREASE corporatism, as nearly any sane person could tell you.
Your resistance to healthcare options outside of the corporate system we currently have will do nothing to help Americans and everything to harm them. Because you seem to know so little on the topic, let me explain. We spend, as a nation, far more than other developed nations on healthcare, generally by twice or thrice. Our life expectancy is less, infant mortality greater, and cure rates below the other nations. Contrary to right-wing lies, we spend longer waiting for treatment and receive far less in actual healthcare when we are finally allowed to get the treatments. You wouldn’t know this, due to being part of the moneyed elite that has no such concerns, but more than two hundred million people in this nation have or will have these issues.
I am opposed to your desire to keep the insurance companies in charge of the very real death panels that other libertarians and conservatives pretend exist in other nations.
My administration will fight for requirements styled after the REINS Act (Regulations From the Executive in Need of Scrutiny) to ensure all new bureaucratic regulations are thoroughly reviewed and approved by Congress before taking effect. I also will cancel all onerous regulations previously issued by executive order.
Yet again, you insist on having powers and abilities outside of the office of President.
I will move to abolish all corporate subsidies and end all bailouts.
I’m not opposed to removing most subsidies and many bailouts that allow executives to hoard money and grant enormous bonuses. I have yet to see any glimmer of understanding from you in regards to the difference between subsidies or stimulus plans that help industry and America and those that do nothing but prop up the oligarchs. Not everything you call a bailout is bad and many subsidies work to keep America moving forward technologically.
As we work to cut $1 trillion in the first year, my budget will eliminate the Departments of Energy, Education, Commerce, Interior, and Housing and Urban Development. Functions that cannot be abolished immediately will be transferred to other departments.
Here you simply betray a vast ignorance and a strong desire to keep all wealth and power in the hands of your fellow millionaires and billionaires. Removing the department of education will do more to separate the states in our currently cohesive union and cause dramatic differences in education levels. The southern states and some Midwest states will regress towards scientifically and historically illiterate populations at the same time your removal of workers protections will make these victims of your plan into little more than slaves, of the style of the mining companies from the 1800’s.
Removing the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development will insure that millions of Americans will have few options other than sheet metal and plywood clap-together homes in Pottervilles around America. It would also allow sprawl and environmental devastation on a scale that would make the meanest third world nation gasp in sadness. I realize that you care nothing about the environment and see and unspoiled landscape as a waste of space, but people that understand environmental studies, food production, etc. all shudder at the thought of your plans.
I plan to answer the call of the vast majority of Americans for a full audit of the Federal Reserve, and I will work with Congress to pass competing currency legislation to strengthen the dollar and stabilize inflation.
Literally every part of your plan will do nothing other than bankrupt the nation and crash the dollar as a currency.
I will lead the way toward restoring a sensible and constitutionally conservative foreign policy by ending all foreign aid, nation-building and participation in organizations that threaten our national sovereignty, while honoring our commitment to our veterans, who deserve what they have sacrificed to earn.
Your obsessive need to declare “all” of something bad should make any thinking person cringe. Do we support nations and regimes that we oughtn’t? Of course. But we also keep many nations strong and relevant on the world stage. Without our foreign aid, most of Africa would be either dead from famine and disease or held by terrorists. Nations in Europe, South America, Asia, and elsewhere all benefit from one degree or another by our aid, to the final benefit of America and a stable and productive world.
Your desire to remove America from organisations, we all know you mean the UN, that is just ridiculous. By participating in the UN we share the benefits. Should we have a complaint against another nation the UN is there to mediate and moderate. When we need to gain an economic advantage, the UN is there to assist. When we want to benefit from a treaty, that is when the UN is handy. Yes, it sometimes means that we must also sacrifice time or money, but it is to benefit all of the world. Your desire to close borders and isolate America is at best short-sighted and actually harmful to both America and the world.
The looming entitlement crisis can be addressed without breaking our nation’s promises to our seniors. Younger workers will be allowed to opt out of Social Security so they can properly invest for their futures, while money saved from reining in our government will be used to sustain those currently depending on Social Security funds.
There is no “looming entitlement crisis,” that is an invention of the right-wing. Social Security is solvent and needs to be altered only slightly on a routine basis to stay so. Allowing investing of money in something else is, yet again, short-sighted at best. In this recent recession millions of people lost billions of dollars. Why do you want that to continue? Corporations have made dozens of billions of dollars from fraud and cheating in the investment markets. Why do you want them to also have the amount that people will need later? Investment is not some magic concept that will allow people to save and support themselves. Investing nearly only helps you and your wealthy friends. Stop trying to convince people to sacrifice their future so that you and your buddies can steal what we have actually earned.
The expanding cost of Medicaid and other welfare programs will be tackled without harming those relying on such programs by giving states block grants to give them the flexibility and ingenuity they need to solve their own unique problems individually.
I’m so tired of hearing about “state’s rights.” As seems to be the case on nearly everything you say, you have no idea what you would unleash… unless perhaps you are malicious and know exactly what you will unleash. In no manner or fashion do I find your desire to give states a block grant without a federal supervisory dept. in place to be good. Mississippians could find themselves being sent to workfarms to pay medical debts and asylums or state “hospitals” for the ill and diseased. Texans could find themselves being executed for getting sick. Your desire to relinquish to the states all control would make these ridiculous statements quite likely.
My administration will reduce the federal workforce by 10 percent, slash congressional pay and perks and curb excessive federal travel. As president, I will stand with the people by taking a salary of $39,336, approximately equal to the median income of average American workers..
So, just to be clear, your plan for an anemic jobs economy is to dump a few million more people into the pool of the unemployed?
Lowering the corporate tax rate to 15 percent will make America competitive globally, and I will allow American companies to repatriate capital without additional taxation, spurring trillions in new investment. I also will work to extend all of the Bush tax cuts, eliminate the death tax and end taxes on all personal savings so families can build nest eggs.
Lowering the corporate tax rate will do nothing except remove even more money from the economy. The corporate tax rate is lower now than it has been in decades. It is FAR lower than the boom years of the 40’-60’s. Extending the tax cuts on yourself and your golf buddies will do nothing to help America. If they would have a positive effect, you’d think that they might have shown some semblance of existing over the last decade.
This insane desire for corporations and billionaires to stop getting taxed benefits only them. If you were either intelligent or honest you would know this.
I am often asked how I expect to accomplish such goals, but I am confident that due to the bully pulpit of the presidency, the power of the veto and, most important, the united voice of the freedom-loving Americans who voted me into office, the real pressure will be on those who support the status quo to defend their reckless big-government agenda.
And this is why I question the sanity of people that support you. You have your taglines and your plan to benefit the wealthy, but nearly no one of consequence supports you. There is no “united voice” in your favour. The few who will vote for you do so knowing that they are wasting their vote.
I am the only candidate with a serious plan to cut spending, balance the budget and promote freedom and prosperity, and I hope you will join me in working to restore America now.
You do not have a serious plan, you have a Randian bundle of bullshit that will do one thing and one thing only: Destroy my nation. Go away Objectivist, the majority of Americans are far too intelligent to vote for you, and even most of those who will vote for you fill their arguments with “Well ya, that part sucks and this part is bad and that other thing would be terrible... but look at his idea on pot!"
nice takedown
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