U.S. Rep. Ron Paul | wealth |
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State Of The Republic
28 January 1998 1998 Ron Paul 2:45
It is not going to happen. 1997 has proven what many have suspected, that reversing or arresting a welfare state cannot occur by majority vote. With apparent wealth abundance in the United States, the reversal assuredly will not come with ease. Once redistribution of wealth is permitted by the democratic vote, destruction of production will occur before the majority will choose to curtail their own benefits.
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State Of The Republic
28 January 1998 1998 Ron Paul 2:109
That is where we are today. The effort on both sides to do “good” threatens personal liberty. There is no evidence that laws designed to improve personal sexual habits, the quality of the press or the plight of the poor have helped. The poor, under all programs of forced redistribution of wealth, always become more numerous. And the State inevitably abuses its power when it tries to regulate freedom of expression or improve personal behavior.
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State Of The Republic
28 January 1998 1998 Ron Paul 2:138
The main motivation behind these mass murders was to maintain political power. Liberty in many ways has become the forgotten cause of the 20th century. Even the mildest mannered welfarist depends on government guns and threats of prison to forcefully extract wealth from producers to transfer it to the politically well-connected. The same government force is used by the powerful rich to promote from the programs designed to benefit them.
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State Of The Republic
28 January 1998 1998 Ron Paul 2:139
The budgetary process and the transfer of wealth that occurs through monetary inflation is influenced more by the business and banking elite than by the poor. The $1.7 trillion budget is not an investment in liberty. The kings are gone and I doubt that we will see another Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot or Mao, but the “majority” in our legislative bodies now reign supreme with one goal in mind: maintaining power.
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Three Important Issues For America
11 February 1998 1998 Ron Paul 7:3
In the attempt to help people in a welfare-warfare state, unfortunately the poor never seem to be helped. A lot of money is spent, but due to the monetary system that we have, inevitably, the middle class tends to get wiped out and the poor get poorer, and very often in the early stages the wealthy get wealthier. In the meantime, the corporations seem to do quite well. So we live in an age where we have a fair amount of corporatism associated with the welfare-warfare state in which we live.
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Three Important Issues For America
11 February 1998 1998 Ron Paul 7:108
And we do not have to be isolationists. We can be more open and more willing to trade and talk with people and we will have a greater chance of peace and prosperity. That is our purpose. Our purpose is to protect liberty. And we do not protect American liberty by jeopardizing their liberty and the wealth of this country by getting involved when we should not be involved.
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The Folly Of Foreign Intervention — Part 2
25 February 1998 1998 Ron Paul 17:5
We, as a wealthy Nation, are expected to bail out other countries who have overextended themselves and they get into trouble. At the same time, we put economic rules and regulations on them and resentments are turned back toward us. The Arabs in the Middle East do not understand our foreign policy because there have been numerous U.N. resolutions, but it is only this one particular resolution that we have felt so compelled to enforce.
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U.S. Obsession With Worldwide Military Occupation Policy
10 March 1998 1998 Ron Paul 25:10
This is not a result of too little money by a misdirected role for our military, a role that contradicts the policy of neutrality, friendship, trade and nonintervention in the affairs of other nations. The question we should ask is: are we entitled to, wealthy enough, or even wise enough to assume the role of world policemen and protector of the world’s natural resources?
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The Bubble
28 April 1998 1998 Ron Paul 39:2
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, the big question is how history will play the current financial situation if all the great wealth accumulated in the last 10 years dissipates in a financial collapse.
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The Bubble
28 April 1998 1998 Ron Paul 39:22
3. Wealth generally transfers from the hands of the middle-class into the hands of the very wealthy. (The very poor receiving welfare gain a degree of protection, short of a total destruction of the currency.)
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The Bubble
28 April 1998 1998 Ron Paul 39:24
5. The group that suffers the very most is the low-middle-income group (those willing to stay off welfare, yet unable to benefit from any transfer of wealth as stagnant wages fail to protect them from the ravages of the rising cost of living).
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The Bubble
28 April 1998 1998 Ron Paul 39:27
A good example of how interventionism leads to the destruction of a market can be seen in the recent tobacco fiasco. First, the tobacco industry accepted subsidies and protectionism to build a powerful and wealthy industry. Then, having conceded this “nanny” role to the government, Big Tobacco had no defense when it was held liable for illnesses that befell some of the willing users of tobacco products. Now, the current plan of super taxation on tobacco users will allow the politicians to bail out the individual farmers who may be injured by reduced use of tobacco products (destruction of the market). This half-trillion-dollar tax proposal hardly solves the problem.
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The Bubble
28 April 1998 1998 Ron Paul 39:35
Although many households are feeling very wealthy today because their stock portfolios are more valuable, this can change rather rapidly in a crash. The big question is what does the future hold for the purchasing power of the dollar over the next 10 or 20 years?
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The Bubble
28 April 1998 1998 Ron Paul 39:54
Liberals are heedless of the significance of monetary policy and its ill effects on the poor. They have no idea that the transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich occurs as a result of monetary policy and serves to hurt the very people they claim to represent. Liberals stick to the old cliche´ that all that’s needed are more welfare benefits. They are, I’m sure, influenced by the fact that if more welfare benefits are handed out, they can count on the Federal Reserve to accommodate them. Unfortunately this will continue to motivate them to argue for a loose monetary policy.
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The Bubble
28 April 1998 1998 Ron Paul 39:58
Until we accept the free market principle that governments cannot create money out of thin air and that money must represent something of real value, we can anticipate a lot more confiscation of wealth through inflation.
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The Indonesia Crisis
19 May 1998 1998 Ron Paul 52:2
ECONOMIC FALLACY Belief that an artificial boom, brought about by Central Bank credit creation, can last forever is equivalent to finding the philosopher’s stone. Wealth cannot be created out of thin air, and new money and credit, although it can on the short-term give an illusion of wealth creation, is destructive of wealth on the long run. This is what we are witnessing in Indonesia — the long run — and it’s a much more destructive scenario than the currently collapsing financial system in Japan. All monetary inflation, something all countries of the world are now participating in, must by their very nature lead to an economic slump.
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The Indonesia Crisis
19 May 1998 1998 Ron Paul 52:3
The crisis in Indonesia is the predictable consequence of decades of monetary inflation. Timing, severity, and duration of the correction, is unpredictable. These depend on political perceptions, realities, subsequent economic policies, and the citizen’s subjective reaction to the ongoing events. The issue of trust in the future and concerns for personal liberties greatly influences the outcome. Even a false trust, or an ill-founded sense of security from an authoritarian leader, can alter the immediate consequences of the economic corrections, but it cannot prevent the inevitable contraction of wealth as is occurring slowly in the more peaceful Japan and rapidly and violently in Indonesia.
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The Indonesia Crisis
22 May 1998 1998 Ron Paul 54:2
ECONOMIC FALLACY Belief that an artificial boom, brought about by Central Bank credit creation, can last forever is equivalent to finding the philosopher’s stone. Wealth cannot be created out of thin air. New money and credit, although it can on the short-term give an illusion of wealth creation, is destructive of wealth on the long run. This is what we are witnessing in Indonesia — the long run — and it’s a much more destructive scenario than the currently collapsing financial system in Japan. All monetary inflation, something nearly all countries of the world are now participating in, must by their very nature lead to an economic slump.
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The Indonesia Crisis
22 May 1998 1998 Ron Paul 54:3
The crisis in Indonesia is the predictable consequence of decades of monetary inflation. Timing, severity, and duration of a correction, is unpredictable. These depend on political perceptions, realities, subsequent economic policies, and the citizen’s subjective reaction to the ongoing events. The issue of trust in the future and concerns for personal liberties greatly influence the outcome. Even a false trust, or an ill-founded sense of security from an authoritarian leader, can alter the immediate consequences of the economic corrections, but it cannot prevent the inevitable contraction of wealth as is occurring slowly in the more peaceful Japan and rapidly and violently in Indonesia.
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Exchange Stabilization Fund
16 July 1998 1998 Ron Paul 79:9
This is why we need more openness. Because, ultimately, this is a threat to the dollar. The dollar, when it is devalued, it hurts the American taxpayer. It is a hidden tax. When we devalue the dollar, we are spending money indirectly. We take away wealth and purchasing power from the American people. And it is a sinister tax. It is the most sinister of all taxes.
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Worldwide Financial Crisis
10 September 1998 1998 Ron Paul 97:2
All financial bubbles are currency driven. When central banks generously create credit out of thin air speculation, debt, and malinvestment result. Early on the stimulative effect is welcomed and applauded as the boom part of the cycle progresses. But illusions of wealth brought about by artificial wealth creation end when the predictable correction arrives. Then we see the panic and disappointment as wealth is wiped off the books.
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World Financial Markets
1 October 1998 1998 Ron Paul 104:5
Short-term benefits were enjoyed, it is clear now they were not worth the resulting chaos. We need not look for the cause which puts the dollar, our economy and our financial markets at risk. The previous boom supported by the illusion of wealth coming from money creation is the cause of current world events, and it guarantees further unwinding of the speculative orgy of the past decades.
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New Global Economic Plan
9 October 1998 1998 Ron Paul 117:8
First, the plan demands additional appropriations to transfer wealth from the richer to the poorer nations through increased funding of the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, Development Bank, and direct foreign aid programs.
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Medicare Home Health And Veterans Health Care Improvement Act Of 1998
9 October 1998 1998 Ron Paul 118:8
Similarly, Congress should seek funds for an increased expenditure on home care by ending federal support for institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which benefit wealthy bankers and powerful interests but not the American people. At a time when the federal government continues to grow to historic heights and meddles in every facet of American life I cannot believe that Congress cannot find expenditure cuts to finance the programs in this bill!
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Monetary Policy
16 October 1998 1998 Ron Paul 120:10
If the problem were merely that there were not enough money, then money creation alone could make us all millionaires and no one would have to work. But increasing the money supply does not increase wealth. Only work and savings do that. The deception comes because, for a while for the luck few, benefits are received when government inflate the currency and pass it out for political reasons.
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Monetary Policy
16 October 1998 1998 Ron Paul 120:11
But in time — and that time is now — it comes to an end. Even the beneficiaries suffer the inevitable consequences of a philosophy that teaches wealth comes from money creation and that central banks are acceptable central economic planners — even in countries such as the United States where many pay lip service to free markets and free trade.
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Peace
25 March 1999 1999 Ron Paul 23:3
Let other nations always keep the idea of their sovereign self-government associated with our Republic and they will befriend us, and no force under heaven will be of power to tear them from our allegiance. But let it be once understood that our government may be one thing and their sovereignty another, that these two things exist without mutual regard one for the other — and the affinity will be gone, the friendship loosened and the alliance hasten to decay and dissolution. As long as we have the wisdom to keep this country as the sanctuary of liberty, the sacred temple consecrated to our common faith, wherever mankind worships freedom they will turn their faces toward us. The more they multiply, the more friends we will have, the more ardently they love liberty, the more perfect will be our relations. Slavery they can find anywhere, as near to us as Cuba or as remote as China. But until we become lost to all feeling of our national interest and natural legacy, freedom and self-rule they can find in none but the American founding. These are precious commodities, and our nation alone was founded them. This is the true currency which binds to us the commerce of nations and through them secures the wealth of the world. But deny others of their national sovereignty and self-government, and you break that sole bond which originally made, and must still preserve, friendship among nations. Do not entertain so weak an imagination as that UN Charters and Security Councils, GATT and international laws, World Trade Organizations and General Assemblies, are what promote commerce and friendship. Do not dream that NATO and peacekeeping forces are the things that can hold nations together. It is the spirit of community that gives nations their lives and efficacy. And it is the spirit of the constitution of our founders that can invigorate every nation of the world, even down to the minutest of these.
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Peace
25 March 1999 1999 Ron Paul 23:5
All this, I know well enough, will sound wild and chimerical to the profane herd of those vulgar and mechanical politicians who have no place among us: a sort of people who think that nothing exists but what is gross and material, and who, therefore, far from begin qualified to be directors of the great movement of this nation, are not fit to turn a wheel in the machinery of our government. But to men truly initiated and rightly taught, these ruling and master principles, which in the opinion of such men as I have mentioned have no substantial existence, are in truth everything. Magnanimity in politics is often the truest wisdom, and a great nation and little minds go ill together. If we are conscious of our situation, and work zealously to fill our places as becomes the history of this great institution, we ought to auspiciate all our public proceedings on Kosovo with the old warning of the Church, Sursum corda! We ought to elevate our minds to the greatness of that trust to which the order of Providence has called us. By adverting to the dignity of this high calling, our forefathers turned a savage wilderness into a glorious nation, and have made the most extensive and the only honorable conquests, not by bombing and sabre-rattling, but by promoting the wealth, the liberty, and the peace of mankind. Let us gain our allies as we obtain our own liberty. Respect of self-government has made our nation all that it is, peace and neutrality alone will makes ours the Republic that it can yet still be.
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A Positive Spin On An Ugly War
7 June 1999 1999 Ron Paul 54:13
To the bewilderment of their own leaders NATO has forcefully supported the notion of autonomy and independence for ethnic states. Instead of huge governments demanding ethnic diversity, the goal of establishing Kosovo’s independence provides the moral foundation for an independent Kashmir Kurdistan, Palestine, Tibet, East Timor, Quebec, and North Ireland and anyone else that believes their rights as citizens would be better protected by small local government. This is in contrast to huge nation states and international governments that care only about controlling wealth, while forgetting about the needs and desires of average citizens.
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Campaign Finance Reform
14 June 1999 1999 Ron Paul 58:8
The quasi two-party system will become more entrenched by limiting the huge expenditures required to oust an incumbent. Alternative choices and third party candidates will be further handicapped if all the reforms proposed are passed. The media become a big winner. Their influence grows as the private money is regulated. It becomes more difficult to refute media propaganda, both print and electronic, when directed against a candidate if funds are limited. The wealthy gain a significant edge since it is clear candidates can spend unlimited personal funds in elections. This is a big boost for the independently wealthy candidates over the average challenger who needs to raise and spend large funds to compete.
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Campaign Finance Reform
14 June 1999 1999 Ron Paul 58:24
The wealthy gain a significant edge since it’s clear candidates can spend unlimited personal funds in elections. This is a big boast for the independently wealthy candidates over the average challenger who needs to raise and spend large funds to compete.
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Campaign Finance Reform
14 September 1999 1999 Ron Paul 97:10
The wealthy gain a significant edge since it’s clear candidates can spend unlimited personal funds in elections. This is a big boost for the independently wealthy candidates over the average challenger who needs to raise and spend large funds to compete.
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A Republic, If You Can Keep It
31 January 2000 2000 Ron Paul 2:18
One would have to conclude from history as well as current conditions that the American Republic has been extremely successful. It certainly has allowed the creation of great wealth with a large middle-class and many very wealthy corporations and individuals. Although the poor are still among us, compared to other parts of the world, even the poor in this country have done quite well.
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A Republic, If You Can Keep It
31 January 2000 2000 Ron Paul 2:55
The goal of strictly limiting the power of our national Government as was intended by the Constitution is impossible to achieve as long as it is acceptable for Congress to redistribute wealth in an egalitarian welfare state.
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A Republic, If You Can Keep It
31 January 2000 2000 Ron Paul 2:68
Once it is clear that it is not nearly as wealthy as it appears, this will become a serious problem and it will get the attention it deserves, even here in the Congress.
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A Republic, If You Can Keep It
31 January 2000 2000 Ron Paul 2:69
Preserving liberty and restoring constitutional precepts are impossible as long as the welfare mentality prevails, and that will not likely change until we have run out of money. But it will become clear as we move into the next century that perpetual wealth and the so-called balanced budget, along with an expanding welfare state, cannot continue indefinitely. Any effort to perpetuate it will only occur with the further erosion of liberty.
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A Republic, If You Can Keep It – Part 2
2 February 2000 2000 Ron Paul 5:60
Unfortunately, the only winners too often are the lawyers hyping the litigation. Few Americans are convinced anymore that productive effort is the most important factor in economic success and personal satisfaction. One did not get rich in the 1990s investing in companies that had significant or modest earnings. The most successful investors bought companies that had no earnings and the gambling paid off big. This attitude cannot create perpetual wealth and must some day end.
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A Republic, If You Can Keep It – Part 2
2 February 2000 2000 Ron Paul 5:80
Laws clearly cannot alter moral behavior, and if it is attempted, it creates bigger problems. Only individuals with moral convictions can make society moral. But the law does reflect the general consensus of the people regarding force and aggression, which is a moral issue. Government can be directed to restrain and punish violent aggressive citizens, or it can use aggressive force to rule the people, redistribute wealth, and make citizens follow certain moral standards, and force them to practice certain personal habits.
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A Republic, If You Can Keep It – Part 2
2 February 2000 2000 Ron Paul 5:98
We are dangerously close to that happening in America, even in the midst of plenty and with the appearance of contentment. If individual liberty is carelessly snuffed out, the creative energy needed for productive pursuits will dissipate. Government produces nothing, and in its effort to redistribute wealth, can only destroy it.
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WHAT IS FREE TRADE?
May 2, 2000 2000 Ron Paul 29:45
So these were the founders talking about this, and yet we have drifted a long way. It does not happen overnight. It has been over a 50-year period. Five years ago we went one step further. First we accepted the idea that international finance would be regulated by the IMF. Then we accepted the idea that the World Bank, which was supposed to help the poor people of the world and redistribute wealth, they have redistributed a lot of wealth, but most of it ended up in the hands of wealthy individuals and wealthy politicians. But the poor people of the world never get helped by these programs. Now, 5 years ago we have accepted the notion that the World Trade Organization will bring about order in trade around the country.
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Manipulating Interest Rates
May 15, 2000 2000 Ron Paul 36:5
* The silly notion that money can be created at will by a printing press or through computer entries is eagerly accepted by the majority as an easy road to riches, while ignoring any need for austerity, hard work, saving, and a truly free market economy. Those who actively endorse this system equate money creation with wealth creation and see it as a panacea for the inherent political difficulty in raising taxes or cutting spending.
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Manipulating Interest Rates
May 15, 2000 2000 Ron Paul 36:8
* But that’s a fallacy. There is always a cost. Artificially low interest rates prompt lower savings, over-capacity expansion, mal-investment, excessive borrowing, speculation, and price increases in various segments of the economy. And since money creation is not wealth creation, it inevitably leads to a lower value for the currency. The inflation always comes to an end with various victims, many of whom never enjoyed the benefits of the credit creation and deficit spending.
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Manipulating Interest Rates
May 15, 2000 2000 Ron Paul 36:12
* Fine-tuning the economy, through monetary manipulation is a dangerous game to play. We are now completing nearly a decade of rapid monetary growth and evidence is now appearing indicating that we will soon start to pay for our profligate ways. The financial bubble that the Fed manufactured over the past decade or two will burst and the illusion of our great wealth will end. In time, also the illusion of “surpluses for as far as the eye can see” will end. Then the Congress will be forced to take much more seriously the budgetary problems that it pretends do not exist.
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Minding Our Own Business Regarding Colombia Is In The Best Interest Of America
September 6, 2000 2000 Ron Paul 69:5
There is evidence of a recent large-scale exodus of wealthy Colombians to Miami. Tens of thousands of Colombians are leaving for the U.S., Canada, Costa Rica, Spain, Australia. These are the middle-class and upper-class citizens, taking their money with them. Our enhanced presence in Colombia has accelerated this exodus.
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CONGRESS IGNORES ITS CONSTITUTIONAL RESPONSIBILITY REGARDING MONETARY POLICY
October 11, 2000 2000 Ron Paul 84:5
And what do we do here in the Congress? We continue to ignore our constitutional responsibility to maintain a sound dollar. Our monetary policy of the last 10 years has produced the largest financial bubble in all of history, with the good times paid for by borrowing and an illusion of wealth created in a speculative stock market. Our current account deficit, now running over $400 billion per year, and our $1.5 trillion foreign debt, has been instrumental in financing our extravagance. Be assured, the piper will be paid. The markets are clearly reflecting the excesses of the 1990s.
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WARNING ABOUT FOREIGN POLICY AND MONETARY POLICY
October 12, 2000 2000 Ron Paul 86:5
I believe this is what has happened for the past 10 years. Mr. Speaker, so in spite of the grand prosperity that we have had for this past decade, I believe it is an illusion in many ways, because we have not paid for it. In a true capitalist society, true wealth comes from hard work and savings.
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THREATS TO FINANCIAL FREEDOM
October 19, 2000 2000 Ron Paul 88:7
I say ‘suspect’ because Citibank views these wealthy people, who control approximately 21 trillion-six hundred billion dollars, as potential financial criminals simply because of their wealth. Citibank announced last year that their 40,000 private banking clients, each of whom had to prove a personal net worth of $3 million in order to qualify for the bank’s services, are watched every minute of every day to see if they may be engaged in money laundering or other financial crimes. I am certain other banks do as well.
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THREATS TO FINANCIAL FREEDOM
October 19, 2000 2000 Ron Paul 88:9
We can conclude from this Draconian arrangement, for one thing, that a person of great wealth who establishes a private banking relationship with a major bank now is presumed to be a
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THREATS TO FINANCIAL FREEDOM
October 19, 2000 2000 Ron Paul 88:11
Now, it’s quite obvious that financial activities in which a person engages when wealth is moved offshore for asset protection, for broader investment potential, for any number of legitimate reasons, for possible tax savings, any of these moves, are innocent in themselves. Former Secretary of the US Treasury, Robert Rubin, admitted in congressional testimony last year, it is the intention behind these innocent financial moves that government agents want to police for possible criminal investigation and prosecution.
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THREATS TO FINANCIAL FREEDOM
October 19, 2000 2000 Ron Paul 88:13
I’m not a defender of wealth per se. I wish I had wealth to defend, but I am a defender of freedom. There can be no freedom, personal or otherwise, without wealth, without the right to own and use one’s own property as one see fit. Remove property rights and you have no means to sustain life for yourself or your family. But now the acquisition and accumulation of productive wealth has become officially suspect in America.
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THREATS TO FINANCIAL FREEDOM
October 19, 2000 2000 Ron Paul 88:14
For the last 20 years the policies adopted by the United States and allied governments have constituted a stealth war against wealth and against financial privacy. While the free flow of capital is extolled as appropriate and essential, the governments of major nations have turned upside down the traditional role of banks and banking. As a child I was made to believe that the people you dealt with at your bank and other financial institutions were fiduciaries to whom you could entrust your money.
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THREATS TO FINANCIAL FREEDOM
October 19, 2000 2000 Ron Paul 88:16
The genesis of this ‘wealth=crime’ policy can be found in that infamous political and moral failure, the so-called ‘war on drugs.’ One of the primary weapons of this ill-begotten war has been civil forfeiture, where police seize cash and property based on rumor or hearsay. In 80% of the cases, the owner is never charged with any crime, but usually the police keep the loot. Many police have long since turned their attention away from drugs, and instead pursue the cash and property they use to lard their budgets. Thankfully, my former colleague, Henry Hyde of Illinois, led the successful legislative battle for some much needed civil forfeiture reform which recently became law.
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THREATS TO FINANCIAL FREEDOM
October 19, 2000 2000 Ron Paul 88:17
As part of the drug war that progressed and expanded (but is never victorious), the catch all crime of ‘money laundering’ was invented: an all purpose federal prosecutors’ dream. The anti-money laundering statutes that have grown like a malignancy. Charges of money laundering now routinely are shown in with almost every possible criminal indictment, often as a bargaining chip and/or a means to confiscate the wealth of the accused even before trial. Try hiring a good defense attorney when your bank account has been frozen.
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THREATS TO FINANCIAL FREEDOM
October 19, 2000 2000 Ron Paul 88:25
There is a decided international dimension to this domestic U.S. campaign against wealth. Beginning last June, the news media took belated notice of offshore tax havens and their thriving financial centers as a newly discovered international threat. A frenzy of publicity surrounded the serial publication of spurious ‘blacklists’ by previously unnoticed international organizations. None of these self-appointed, self-important groups enjoy any legal standing, but they proceeded to announce exactly how the international financial world should conduct its affairs. Those nations in disagreement with the OECD world view were threatened with financial boycotts and unexplained ‘sanctions’ to be imposed by June 2001.
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THREATS TO FINANCIAL FREEDOM
October 19, 2000 2000 Ron Paul 88:30
Every one of the wealthy nations that are pushing this attack on tax havens are controlled by high-tax, socialist governments who see a tax and wealth hemorrhage occurring among their citizens. Yes, millions, billions of dollars, pounds and francs are pouring out of high tax nations flowing to offshore tax havens — and for very good reasons. Why would anyone in his right mind continue to pay confiscatory taxes when you can move your financial activity to another nation where you pay no personal or corporate income tax, no estate tax, no capital gains tax?
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ECONOMIC PROBLEMS AHEAD
November 13, 2000 2000 Ron Paul 93:4
* Even though it is argued that there are huge budget surpluses in Washington, instead of budget compromise, a stalemate results. Each side wants even a greater share of the loot being distributed by the politicians. Even with the windfall revenues, no serious suggestion is made in Washington for cuts in spending. Instead of moving toward a market economy and less dependency on the federal government in the midst of this so-called ‘prosperity,’ we continue to go World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank. Although in the early stages of interventionism and government planning, especially when a great deal of wealth is available for redistribution, it seems to enhance prosperity while prolonging the financial bubble on which the economy is dependent. The monetary system, both our domestic system as well as the international fiat system, plays a key role in the artificial prosperity based on inflated currencies as well as debt and speculation.
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ECONOMIC PROBLEMS AHEAD
November 13, 2000 2000 Ron Paul 93:5
* The pretended goal of the economic planners has been economic fairness through redistribution of wealth, politically correct social consciousness, and an all-intrusive government which becomes a responsibility for personal safety, health and education while personal responsibility is diminished. The goal of liberty has long been forgotten. The concentrated effort has been to gain power through the control of wealth with a scheme that pretends to treat everybody fairly. An impasse was destined to come, and already signs are present in our system of welfarism. This election in many ways politically demonstrates this economic reality. The political stalemate reflects the stalemate that is developing in the economy. Both will eventually cause deep division and hardship. The real problem-preserving of the free market and private property rights- if ignored, will only make things worse, because the only solution that will be offered in Washington will be more government intervention, increased spending, increase in monetary inflation, more debt, greater military activity throughout the world, and priming the economic pump with more expenditures for weapons we do not need.
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CHALLENGE TO AMERICA: A CURRENT ASSESSMENT OF OUR REPUBLIC —
February 07, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 7:9
The Third Way , a bipartisan compromise that sounds less confrontational and circumvents the issue of individual liberty, free markets, and production is an alluring, but dangerous, alternative. The harsh reality is that it is difficult to sell the principles of liberty to those who are dependent on government programs. And this includes both the poor beneficiaries as well as the self-serving wealthy elites who know how to benefit from government policies. The authoritarian demagogues are always anxious to play on the needs of people made dependent by a defective political system of government intervention while perpetuating their own power. Anything that can help the people to avoid facing the reality of the shortcomings of the welfare/warfare state is welcomed. Thus our system is destined to perpetuate itself until the immutable laws of economics bring it to a halt at the expense of liberty and prosperity.
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CHALLENGE TO AMERICA: A CURRENT ASSESSMENT OF OUR REPUBLIC —
February 07, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 7:10
Third Way compromise, or bipartisan cooperation, can never reconcile the differences between those who produce and those who live off others. It will only make it worse. Theft is theft, and forced redistribution of wealth is just that. The Third Way , though, can deceive and perpetuate an unworkable system when both major factions endorse the principle.
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CHALLENGE TO AMERICA: A CURRENT ASSESSMENT OF OUR REPUBLIC —
February 07, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 7:14
How true bipartisanship works in Washington is best illustrated by the way a number of former Members of Congress make a living after leaving office. They find it quite convenient to associate with other former Members of the opposing party and start a lobbying firm. What might have appeared to be contentious differences when in office are easily put aside to lobby their respected party Members. Essentially no philosophic difference of importance exists-it’s only a matter of degree and favors sought, since both parties must be won over. The differences they might have had while they were voting Members of Congress existed only for the purpose of appealing to their different constituencies, not serious differences of opinion as to what the role of government ought to be. This is the reality of bipartisanship. Sadly our system handsomely rewards those who lobby well and in a bipartisan fashion. Congressional service too often is a training ground or a farm system for the ultimate government service: lobbying Congress for the benefit of powerful and wealthy special interests.
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CHALLENGE TO AMERICA: A CURRENT ASSESSMENT OF OUR REPUBLIC —
February 07, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 7:44
The majority of Americans have not yet accepted the harsh reality that this less-threatening, friendlier type of economic planning is minimally more efficient than that of the socialist planners with their five-year economic plans. We must face the fact that the business cycle, with its recurring recessions, wage controls, wealth transfers, and social discord are still with us and will get worse unless there is a fundamental change in economic and monetary policy. Regardless of the type, central economic planning is a dangerous notion.
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CHALLENGE TO AMERICA: A CURRENT ASSESSMENT OF OUR REPUBLIC —
February 07, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 7:47
It’s important to understand how we got ourselves into this mess. The blind faith that wealth and capital can be created by the central bank’s creating money and credit out of thin air, using government debt as its collateral, along with fixing short-term interest rates, is a myth that must one day be dispelled. All the hopes of productivity increases in a dreamed-about new-era economy cannot repeal eternal economic laws.
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CHALLENGE TO AMERICA: A CURRENT ASSESSMENT OF OUR REPUBLIC —
February 07, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 7:52
Instead of looking at the real cost and actual reasons for the recent good years, politicians and many Americans have been all too eager to accept the new-found wealth as permanent and deserved, as part of a grand new era. Even with a national debt that continued to grow, all the talk in DC was about how to handle the magnificent budget surpluses.
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CHALLENGE TO AMERICA: A CURRENT ASSESSMENT OF OUR REPUBLIC —
February 07, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 7:76
But the day will come when we will have no choice but to question the current system. Yes, the FED does help to finance the welfare state. Yes, the FED does come to the rescue when funds are needed to fight wars and for us to pay the cost of maintaining our empire. Yes, the Fed is able to stimulate the economy and help create what appear to be good times. But it’s all built on an illusion. Wealth cannot come from a printing press. Empires crumble and a price is eventually paid for arrogance toward others. And booms inevitably turn into busts.
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CHALLENGE TO AMERICA: A CURRENT ASSESSMENT OF OUR REPUBLIC —
February 07, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 7:112
We have just gone through a roaring decade with many Americans enjoying prosperity beyond their wildest dreams. Because this wealth was not always earned and instead resulted from borrowing, speculation, and inflation, the correction that’s to come will contribute to the social discord already inherent in a system of government interventionism. If, indeed, the economy enters a severe recession, which is highly possible, it will compound the problems characteristic of a system that encourages government supervision over all that we do.
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CHALLENGE TO AMERICA: A CURRENT ASSESSMENT OF OUR REPUBLIC —
February 07, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 7:113
Conflicts between classes, races, ethnic groups, and even generations are already apparent. This is a consequence of pitting workers and producers against moochers and the special-interest rich. Divvying up half of the GDP through a process of confiscatory taxation invites trouble. It is more easily tolerated when wealth abounds; but when the economy slips, quiescent resentment quickly turns to noisy confrontation. Those who feel slighted become more demanding at the same time resources are diminished.
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CHALLENGE TO AMERICA: A CURRENT ASSESSMENT OF OUR REPUBLIC —
February 07, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 7:124
The drug laws, I’m sure, were never meant to be discriminatory, yet they are. In Massachusetts, 82.9% of the drug offenders are minorities, but they make up only 9% of the state population. The fact that crack-cocaine users are more likely to land in prison than powder-cocaine users, and with harsher sentences, discriminates against black Americans. A wealthy suburbanite caught using drugs is much less likely to end up in prison than someone from the inner city. This inequity adds to the conflict between races and between the poor and the police. And it’s unnecessary.
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CHALLENGE TO AMERICA: A CURRENT ASSESSMENT OF OUR REPUBLIC —
February 07, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 7:141
For far too long, we have accepted the idea that government can and should take care of us. But that is not what a free society is all about. When government gives us something, it does two bad things. First it takes it from someone else; second, it causes dependency on government. A wealthy country can do this for long periods of time, but eventually the process collapses. Freedom is always sacrificed and eventually the victims rebel. As needs grow, the producers are unable or unwilling to provide the goods the government demands. Wealth then hides or escapes, going underground or overseas, prompting even more government intrusion to stop the exodus from the system. This only compounds the problem.
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CHALLENGE TO AMERICA: A CURRENT ASSESSMENT OF OUR REPUBLIC —
February 07, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 7:142
Endless demands and economic corrections that come with the territory will always produce deficits. An accommodating central bank then is forced to steal wealth through the inflation tax by merely printing money and creating credit out of thin air. Even though these policies may work for a while, eventually they will fail. As wealth is diminished, recovery becomes more difficult in an economy operating with a fluctuating fiat currency and a marketplace overly burdened with regulation, taxes, and inflation.
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POTENTIAL FOR WAR
February 08, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 10:43
We have just gone through a roaring decade with many Americans enjoying prosperity beyond their wildest dreams. Because this wealth was not always earned and instead resulted from borrowing, speculation and inflation, the correction that is to come will contribute to the social discord already inherent in a system of government interventionism.
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POTENTIAL FOR WAR
February 08, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 10:45
Conflicts between classes, races and ethnic groups and even generations are already apparent. This is a consequence of pitting workers and producers against the moochers and the special-interest rich. Divvying up half of the GDP through a process of confiscatory taxation invites trouble. It is more easily tolerated when wealth abounds. But when the economy slips, quiescent resentment quickly turns to noisey confrontation.
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POTENTIAL FOR WAR
February 08, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 10:63
A wealthy suburbanite caught using drugs is much less likely to end up in prison than someone from the inner city. This inequity adds to the conflict between races and between the poor and the police. And it is so unnecessary.
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POTENTIAL FOR WAR
February 08, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 10:88
For far too long, we have accepted the idea that government can and should take care of us. But that is not what a free society is all about. When government gives us something, it does two bad things. First, it takes it from someone else; second, it causes dependency on government. A wealthy country can do this for long periods of time, but eventually the process collapses. Freedom is always sacrificed and eventually the victims rebel. As needs grow, the producers are unable or unwilling to provide the goods the government demands. Wealth then hides or escapes, going underground or overseas, prompting even more government intrusion to stop the exodus from the system. This only compounds the problem.
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POTENTIAL FOR WAR
February 08, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 10:89
Endless demands and economic corrections that come with the territory will always produce deficits. An accommodating central bank then is forced to steal wealth through the inflation tax by merely printing money and creating credit out of thin air. Even though these policies may work for awhile, eventually they will fail. As wealth is diminished, recovery becomes more difficult in an economy operating with a fluctuating fiat currency and a marketplace overly burdened with regulation, taxes and inflation.
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The Beginning of the End of Fiat Money
March 13, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 18:12
One day it will become known that technological advances and improvements in productivity also have a downside. This technology hid the ill effects of the monetary mischief the Fed had enthusiastically engaged in over the past decade. Technological improvements, while keeping the CPI and the PPI prices in check, led many, including Greenspan, to victoriously declare that no inflation existed and that a new era had indeed arrived. Finally, it’s declared that the day has arrived that printing money is equivalent to producing wealth and without a downside. Counterfeiting works!
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Manipulation Of Interest Rates Cause Economic Problems
20 March 2001 2001 Ron Paul 22:15
Last year, for the first time in our history of keeping this record since 1945, in 55 years, the wealth of the American people went down 2 percent.
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Repeal of the Selective Service Act
April 26, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 28:14
Unless we believe that the average productivity of conscription-age males is worth less than NT$10,000 or so per month (the monthly salary of an ordinary soldier), we cannot but agree that society as a whole would gain more wealth without conscription than the government coffers have to lose. Such losses might even be offset by increased government revenue from taxes on the gains made by those conscription-aged men who would be working in society instead.
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Inflation Is Still With Us
3 May 2001 2001 Ron Paul 30:9
A sad consequence of today’s conditions is that monetary policy encourages transfer of wealth and power to the undeserving. The victims of bad monetary policy then blame capitalism for the inequities. The leftist demonstrators at recent WTO, IMF, and World Bank meetings make a legitimate point that the current system has resulted in accumulation of wealth and power in the hands of some at the expense of others.
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Statement Paul Amendment to Defund the UN
July 18, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 56:9
Today we have international government that manages trade through the WTO. We have international government that manages all international financial transactions through the IMF. We have an international government that manages welfare through the World Bank. Do these institutions really help the poor people of the world? Hardly. They help the people who control the hands of power in these international institutions and generally they help the very wealthy, the bankers, and the international corporations.
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A NEWSPAPER ARTICLE ON THE LIFE OF FREDERIC BASTIAT -- HON. RON PAUL
July 26, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 67:14
Despite the publication of Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations” decades earlier, Bastiat was still fighting the mercantilist view of exports as good and imports as bad. He pointed out that under this view, the ideal situation would be for a ship loaded with exports to sink at sea. One nation gets the benefit of exporting and no nation has to bear the burden of importing.
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The US Dollar and the World Economy
September 6, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 75:14
Modern-day globalism, since gold’s demise thirty years ago, has been based on a purely fiat US dollar, with all other currencies tied to the dollar. International redistribution and management of wealth through the IMF, the World Bank, and the WTO have promoted this new version of globalism. This type of globalism depends on trusting central bankers to maintain currency values and the international institutions to manage trade equitably, while bailing out weak economies with dollar inflation. This, of course, has only been possible because the dollar strength is perceived to be greater than it really is.
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The US Dollar and the World Economy
September 6, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 75:31
Concerned Federal Reserve economists are struggling to understand how the wealth effect of the stock market and real estate bubble affect economic activity and consumer spending. It should be no mystery, but it would be too much to expect the Fed to look to itself and its monetary policy for an explanation and assume responsibility for engineering the entire financial mess we’re in.
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The US Dollar and the World Economy
September 6, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 75:41
Economic adjustments wouldn’t be so bad, as many mild recessions have proven, except that wealth is inexorably and unfairly transferred from middle class and poor to the rich. Job losses and the rising cost of living hurt some more than others. If our course is not changed, the entire middle-class prosperity can be endangered, as has happened all too often in other societies that pursued a false belief that paper money could be satisfactorily managed.
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Foreign Interventionism
September 25, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 80:16
Osama bin Laden, a wealthy man, left Saudi Arabia in 1979 to join American- sponsored so-called freedom fighters in Afghanistan. He received financial assistance, weapons and training from our CIA, just as his allies in Kosovo continue to receive the same from us today.
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Statement on Funding for the Export- Import Bank
October 31, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 91:6
The case for Eximbank is further weakened considering that small businesses receive only 12-15% of Eximbank funds; the vast majority of Eximbank funds benefit large corporations. These corporations can certainly afford to support their own exports without relying on the American taxpayer. It is not only bad economics to force working Americans, small business, and entrepreneurs to subsidize the exports of the large corporations: it is also immoral. In fact, this redistribution from the poor and middle class to the wealthy is the most indefensible aspect of the welfare state, yet it is the most accepted form of welfare. Mr. Chairman, it never ceases to amaze me how members who criticize welfare for the poor on moral and constitutional grounds see no problem with the even more objectionable programs that provide welfare for the rich.
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Statement on Funding for the Export- Import Bank
October 31, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 91:9
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, Eximbank distorts the market by allowing government bureaucrats to make economic decisions in place of individual consumers. Eximbank also violates basic principles of morality, by forcing working Americans to subsidize the trade of wealthy companies that could easily afford to subsidize their own trade, as well as subsidizing brutal governments like Red China and the Sudan. Eximbank also violates the limitations on congressional power to take the property of individual citizens and use them to benefit powerful special interests. It is for these reasons that I urge my colleagues to reject HR 2871, the Export-Import Bank Reauthorization Act.
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Foolishness Of Fiat
31 October 2001 2001 Ron Paul 92:3
Fiat money works as long as trust in the currency lasts. But eventually trust is always withdrawn from paper money. Fiat money evolves out of sound money, which always originates in the market, but paper money inevitably fails no matter how hard the beneficiaries try to perpetuate the fraud. We are now witnessing the early stages of the demise of a worldwide financial system built on the fiction that wealth can come out of a printing press or a computer at our central banks.
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The War On Terrorism
November 29, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 98:37
Rumsfeld’s plan, as reported in Turkey’s Hurriyet newspaper, lays out the plan for the next Iraqi government. Turkey’s support is crucial, so the plan is to give Turkey oil from the northern Iraq Karkuk field. The United States has also promised a pipeline running from Iraq through Turkey. How can the Turks resist such a generous offer? Since we subsidize Turkey and they bomb the Kurds, while we punish the Iraqis for the same, this plan to divvy up wealth in the land of the Kurds is hardly a surprise.
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The Case For Defending America
24 January 2002 2002 Ron Paul 1:15
Even with this massive rush to embrace all the bailouts offered up by Washington, a growing number of Americans are rightfully offended by the enormity of it all and annoyed that powerful and wealthy special interests seem to be getting the bulk of the benefits.
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Stimulating The Economy
February 7, 2002 2002 Ron Paul 5:8
Those who felt and acted wealthy in holding the dot-com and Enron stocks were brought back to earth with a shattering correction. There’s a lot more of this type of correction yet to come in the financial sector.
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Stimulating The Economy
February 7, 2002 2002 Ron Paul 5:17
Transferring wealth to achieve a modicum of economic equality and assuming the role of world policeman, while ignoring economic laws regarding money and credit, must lead to economic distortions and a lower standard of living for most citizens. In the process, dependency on the government develops and Congress attempts to solve all the problems with a much more visible hand than Adam Smith recommended. The police efforts overseas and the effort to solve the social and economic problems here at home cannot be carried out without undermining the freedoms that we all profess to care about.
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Stimulating The Economy
February 7, 2002 2002 Ron Paul 5:31
However, support for today’s policies is built on the fallacy that material wealth and general prosperity are best achieved with this third way- interventionism- while avoiding the dangers of communism and socialism. This is coupled with the firm conviction that the sacrifice of freedom will be minimal and limited and that the very rich can be adequately taxed and regulated to help the poor.
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Stimulating The Economy
February 7, 2002 2002 Ron Paul 5:32
This is a fallacy because more freedom will be lost than is expected, and the productivity of the market will suffer more than anticipated. Once this realization occurs, it will suddenly be discovered that the apparent wealth of the nation is a lot less than calculated.
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Stimulating The Economy
February 7, 2002 2002 Ron Paul 5:34
Countries that inflate their currencies must adjust their values periodically with sudden devaluations, which destroy the pseudo-wealth of the middle class and poor. The wealthy, more often than not, can protect themselves from the sudden shocks to the monetary system. However, they can’t protect from the insidious loss of liberty that accompanies these adjustments, and eventually everyone suffers.
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Stimulating The Economy
February 7, 2002 2002 Ron Paul 5:36
This special status of the dollar only makes the problem of the illusion of wealth much worse. Since our bubble can last longer due to our perceived military and economic strength, it appears that our wealth is much greater than it actually is. Because of our unique position as the economic powerhouse of the world, we’re able to borrow more than anyone else. Foreigners loan us exorbitant sums, as our current account deficit soars out of sight. The U.S. now has a foreign debt of over $2 trillion. Perceptions and illusions and easy credit allow our consumers to spend, even in recessions, by rolling up even more debt in a time when market forces are saying that borrowing should decrease and the debt burden lessen. Our corporations follow the same pattern, keeping afloat with more borrowing.
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Stimulating The Economy
February 7, 2002 2002 Ron Paul 5:45
It’s possible this recession may end in a few months as the optimists predict, but if it does, our problems are only delayed. The fundamental correction will still be necessary to preserve the productivity of a market economy. If we do not change our ways, the financial bubble will just go back to inflating again. The big correction, like that which Argentina is now experiencing with rapid disappearance of paper wealth, will eventually hit our economy. The longer the delay, the bigger will be the bust and greater the threat to our freedoms and institutions.
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Stimulating The Economy
February 7, 2002 2002 Ron Paul 5:46
Since we’re moving toward the big correction, we’re going to see a lot more wealth removed from our balance sheets and our retirement accounts. The rampant price inflation that results will erode the purchasing power of all fixed-income retirement funds like Social Security and mean a lower standard living for most people. The routine government response of increasing benefits for living expenses and medical care will never keep up with the needs or demands. Eventually we will have to give up, and a new economic system will have to be devised, as occurred in the Soviet system after 1989.
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Stimulating The Economy
February 7, 2002 2002 Ron Paul 5:47
Wealth- the product of labor, investment and savings- can never be substituted by government spending or by a central bank that creates new money out of thin air. Governments can only give things they first take away from someone else. Printing money only diminishes the value of each monetary unit. Neither can create wealth; both can destroy it.
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Stimulating The Economy
February 7, 2002 2002 Ron Paul 5:48
The dilemma is that early on, and sometimes for many years as we have experienced, transferring wealth and printing money seem to help more than it hurts. That’s because the wealth is not real, and the trust funds, like Social Security hold no actual wealth. A pension fund with dot-com and Enron stock held no wealth either. Unfortunately, the stocks and bonds remaining are worth a lot less than most people realize.
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Stimulating The Economy
February 7, 2002 2002 Ron Paul 5:50
The economic loss is bad enough, but whether it’s fighting the war on terrorism, acting as the world’s policeman, or solving the problems of vanishing wealth, the real insult will come from the freedoms we lose. These freedoms, vital to production and wealth formation, are necessary and represent what the American dream is all about. They are what made us the richest nation in all of history, but this we will lose if Congress is not careful with what it does in the coming months.
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Export-Import Reauthorization Act
19 March 2002 2002 Ron Paul 17:7
The case for Eximbank is further weakened considering that small businesses receive only 12–15 percent of Eximbank funds; the vast majority of Eximbank funds benefit large corporations. These corporations can certainly afford to support their own exports without relying on the American taxpayer. It is not only bad economics to force working Americans, small business, and entrepreneurs to subsidize the exports of the large corporations; it is also immoral. In fact, this redistribution from the poor and middle class to the wealthy is the most indefensible aspect of the welfare state, yet it is the most accepted form of welfare. Mr. Speaker, it never ceases to amaze me how members who criticize welfare for the poor on moral and constitutional grounds see no problem with the even more objectionable programs that provide welfare for the rich.
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Export-Import Reauthorization Act
19 March 2002 2002 Ron Paul 17:10
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, Eximbank distorts the market by allowing government bureaucrats to make economic decisions in place of individual consumers. Eximbank also violates basic principles of morality, by forcing working Americans to subsidize the trade of wealthy companies that could easily afford to subsidize their own trade, as well as subsidizing brutal governments like Red China and the Sudan. Eximbank also violates the limitations on congressional power to take the property of individual citizens and use them to benefit powerful special interests. It is for these reasons that I urge my colleagues to reject S. 2019.
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Statement Opposing Export-Import Bank Corporate Welfare
May 1, 2002 2002 Ron Paul 31:8
It is not only bad economics to force working Americans, small business, and entrepreneurs to subsidize the export of the large corporations: it is also immoral. In fact, this redistribution from the poor and middle class to the wealthy is the most indefensible aspect of the welfare state, yet it is the most accepted form of welfare. Mr. Speaker, it never ceases to amaze me how members who criticize welfare for the poor on moral and constitutional grounds see no problem with the even more objectionable programs that provide welfare for the rich.
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Statement Opposing Export-Import Bank Corporate Welfare
May 1, 2002 2002 Ron Paul 31:15
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, Eximbank distorts the market by allowing government bureaucrats to make economic decisions in place of individual consumers. Eximbank also violates basic principles of morality, by forcing working Americans to subsidize the trade of wealthy companies that could easily afford to subsidize their own trade, as well as subsidizing brutal governments like Red China and the Sudan. Eximbank also violates the limitations on congressional power to take the property of individual citizens and use it to benefit powerful special interests. It is for these reasons that I urge my colleagues to reject H.R. 2871, the Export-Import Bank Reauthorization Act.
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Beware Dollar Weakness
June 5, 2002 2002 Ron Paul 52:5
History and economic law are on the side of the gold. Paper money always fails. Unfortunately, though, this occurs only after many innocent people have suffered the consequences of the fraud that paper money represents. Monetary inflation is a hidden tax levied more on the poor and those on fixed incomes than the wealthy, the bankers, or the corporations.
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Beware Dollar Weakness
June 5, 2002 2002 Ron Paul 52:12
Congress must soon consider significant changes in our monetary system if we hope to preserve a system of sound growth and wealth preservation. Paper money managed by the Federal Reserve System cannot accomplish this. In fact, it does the opposite.
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Is America a Police State?
June 27, 2002 2002 Ron Paul 64:122
To do so, we as a people will once again have to dedicate ourselves to establishing the proper role a government plays in a free society. That does not involve the redistribution of wealth through force. It does not mean that government dictates the moral and religious standards of the people. It does not allow us to police the world by involving ourselves in every conflict as if it’s our responsibility to manage a world American empire.
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Has Capitalism Failed?
July 9, 2002 2002 Ron Paul 66:13
First, Congress should be investigating the federal government’s fraud and deception in accounting, especially in reporting future obligations such as Social Security, and how the monetary system destroys wealth. Those problems are bigger than anything in the corporate world and are the responsibility of Congress. Besides, it’s the standard set by the government and the monetary system it operates that are major contributing causes to all that’s wrong on Wall Street today. Where fraud does exist, it’s a state rather than federal matter, and state authorities can enforce these laws without any help from Congress.
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Hard Questions for Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan
July 17, 2002 2002 Ron Paul 71:4
"Now I would like to bring us back to sound money. And I would like to quote an eminent economist by the name of Alan Greenspan who gives me some credibility on what I am interested in. A time ago you said, “In the absence of the gold standard there is no way to protect savings from the confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value without gold. This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists’ tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the hidden confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process that stands as a protector of property rights.’"
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The Price Of War
5 September 2002 2002 Ron Paul 83:17
Historically, the driving force behind world domination is usually an effort to control wealth. The Europeans were searching for gold when they came to the Americas. Now it is our turn to seek control over the black gold which drives much of what we do today in foreign affairs.
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The Price Of War
5 September 2002 2002 Ron Paul 83:56
Countries like Switzerland and Sweden, who promote neutrality and nonintervention, have benefited for the most part by remaining secure and free of war over the centuries. Nonintervention consumes a lot less of the Nation’s wealth. With less wars, the higher the standard of living for all citizens. But this, of course, is not attractive to the military-industrial complex which enjoys a higher standard of living at the expense of the taxpayer when a policy of intervention and constant war preparation is carried out.
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The Price Of War
5 September 2002 2002 Ron Paul 83:59
The Soviet system, armed with an aggressive plan to spread its empire worldwide, collapsed, not because we attacked it militarily but for financial and economic reasons. They no longer could afford it and the resources and wealth that it drained finally turned the people against its authoritarian rule.
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The Price Of War
5 September 2002 2002 Ron Paul 83:61
This Soviet collapse ushered in the age of unparalleled American dominance over the entire world and along with it allowed the new expanded hot war between the West and the Muslim East. All the hostility directed toward the West built up over the centuries between the two factions is now directed toward the United States. We are now the only power capable of paying for and literally controlling the Middle East and its cherished wealth, and we have not hesitated. Iraq, with its oil and water and agricultural land, is a prime target of our desire to further expand our dominion. The battle is growing ever so tense with our acceptance and desire to control the Caspian Sea oil riches. But Russia, now licking its wounds and once again accumulating wealth, will not sit idly by and watch the American empire engulf this region. When time runs out for us, we can be sure Russia will once again be ready to fight for control of all those resources in countries adjacent to her borders. And expect the same from China and India. And who knows, maybe one day even Japan will return to the ancient art of using force to occupy the cherished territories in their region of the world.
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Abolishing The Federal Reserve
10 September 2002 2002 Ron Paul 86:20
“An almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is one issue which unites statists of all persuasions. They seem to sense — perhaps more clearly and subtly than many consistent defenders of laissez-faire — that gold and economic freedom are inseparable, that the gold standard is an instrument of laissez-faire and that each implies and requires the other. . . . This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists’ tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights.”
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Republic Versus Democracy
29 January 2003 2003 Ron Paul 6:25
Supporters of democracy are always quick to point out one of the perceived benefits of this system is the redistribution of wealth by government to the poor. Although this may be true in a limited fashion, the champions of this system never concern themselves with the victims from whom the wealth is stolen. The so-called benefits are short lived because democracy consumes wealth with little concern for those who produce it. Eventually, the programs cannot be funded, and the dependency that has developed precipitates angry outcries for even more fairness.
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Republic Versus Democracy
29 January 2003 2003 Ron Paul 6:32
Although the motivating factor is frequently the desire for the poor to better themselves through the willingness of others to sacrifice for what they see as a good cause, the process is doomed to failure. Governments are inefficient and the desired goals are rarely achieved. Administrators who benefit perpetuate the programs. Wealthy elites learn to benefit from the system in a superior fashion over the poor because they know how to skim the cream off the top of all the programs designed for the disadvantaged. They join the various groups in producing the majority vote needed to fund their own special interest.
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Republic Versus Democracy
29 January 2003 2003 Ron Paul 6:42
Some of the planners of today clearly understand the process. And others, out of ignorance, view central bank money creation as a convenience with little danger. That is where they are wrong. Even though the wealthy and the bankers support paper money, believing they know how to protect against its ill effects, many of them are eventually dragged down in the economic downturns that always develop. It is not a new era that they have created for us today, but more of the same endured throughout history by so many other nations.
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Republic Versus Democracy
29 January 2003 2003 Ron Paul 6:44
The destruction of the wealth-building process, which is inherent in a free society, is never anticipated. Once it is realized it has been undermined, it is too late to easily reverse the attacks against limited government and personal liberty. Democracy, by necessity, endorses special interest interventionism, inflationism and corporatism. In order to carry out the duties now expected of the government, power must be transferred from the citizens to the politicians. The only thing left is to decide which group or groups have the greatest influence over the government officials.
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Republic Versus Democracy
29 January 2003 2003 Ron Paul 6:45
As the wealth of the nation dwindles, competition between the special interest groups grows more intense and becomes the dominant goal of all political action. Restoration of liberty, the market, and personal responsibilities are of little interest and are eventually seen as impractical. Power and public opinion become crucial factors in determining the direction of all government expenditures.
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Republic Versus Democracy
29 January 2003 2003 Ron Paul 6:49
Simply stated, our wealth is running out, and the affordability of democracy is coming to an end. History reveals that once majorities can vote themselves largesse, the system is destined to collapse from within. But in order to maintain the special interest system for as long as possible, more and more power must be given to an ever-expanding central government, which of course only makes matters worse. The economic shortcomings of such a system are easily understood. What is too often ignored is that the flip side of delivering power to government is the loss of liberty to the individual. This loss of liberty causes exactly what the government does not want: Less productive citizens who can’t pay taxes.
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Republic Versus Democracy
29 January 2003 2003 Ron Paul 6:64
The terrorist attacks are related to our severely flawed foreign policy of intervention. They also reflect the shortcomings of a bureaucracy that is already big enough to know everything it needs to know about impending attacks, but too cumbersome to do anything about it. Bureaucratic weaknesses within a fragile welfare state provide a prime opportunity for those whom we antagonize by our domination over world affairs and global wealth to take advantage of our vulnerability.
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Republic Versus Democracy
29 January 2003 2003 Ron Paul 6:71
The same will occur internationally, even if it miraculously did not cause conflict among the groups demanding the loot confiscated from the producing individuals or countries. Democratic socialism is so destructive to production of wealth that it must fail, just as socialism failed under communism. We have a long way to go before old-fashioned nationalism is dead and buried. In the meantime, the determination of those promoting democratic socialism will cause great harm to many people before its chaotic end and we rediscover the basic principle responsible for all of human progress.
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Republic Versus Democracy
29 January 2003 2003 Ron Paul 6:78
Spending is predictable in a democracy, especially one that endorses foreign interventionism. It always goes up, both in nominal terms and in percentage of the nation’s wealth.
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Republic Versus Democracy
29 January 2003 2003 Ron Paul 6:79
Paying for it can be quite complicated. The exact method is less consequential than the percent of the nation’s wealth the government commands. Borrowing and central bank credit creation are generally used and are less noticeable, but more deceitful, than direct taxation to pay as we go.
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Republic Versus Democracy
29 January 2003 2003 Ron Paul 6:82
Although this appears to be a convenient and cheap way to pay the bills, the economic consequences of lost employment, inflated prices and economic dislocation make the long-term consequences much more severe than paying as we go. Not only is this costly in terms of national wealth, it significantly contributes to the political chaos and loss of liberty that accompany the death throes of a doomed democracy.
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Republic Versus Democracy
29 January 2003 2003 Ron Paul 6:83
This does not mean that direct taxes will not be continuously raised to pay for out-of-control spending. In a democracy, all earned wealth is assumed to belong to the government. Therefore, not raising taxes, cutting taxes, or granting tax credits are considered “costs” of government. Once this notion is established, tax credits or cuts are given only under condition that the beneficiaries conform to the democratic consensus. Freedom of choice is removed, even if a group is merely getting back control of that which was rightfully theirs in the first place.
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Neo – CONNED !
July 10, 2003 2003 Ron Paul 73:66
Machiavelli, Ledeen and the neocons recognized a need to generate a religious zeal for promoting the state. This, he claims, is especially necessary when force is used to promote an agenda. It’s been true throughout history and remains true today, each side of major conflicts invokes God’s approval. Our side refers to a “crusade;” theirs to a “holy Jihad.” Too often wars boil down to their god against our God. It seems this principle is more a cynical effort to gain approval from the masses, especially those most likely to be killed for the sake of the war promoters on both sides who have power, prestige and wealth at stake.
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Neo – CONNED !
July 10, 2003 2003 Ron Paul 73:95
Let it not be said that no one cared, that no one objected once it’s realized that our liberties and wealth are in jeopardy. A few have, and others will continue to do so, but too many—both in and out of government—close their eyes to the issue of personal liberty and ignore the fact that endless borrowing to finance endless demands cannot be sustained. True prosperity can only come from a healthy economy and sound money. That can only be achieved in a free society.
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Bring Back Honest Money
17 July 2003 2003 Ron Paul 82:7
The advantages given banks and other financial institutions by our fiat monetary system, which is built on a foundation of legal tender laws, allow them to realize revenues that would not be available to these institutions in a free market. This represents legalized plunder of ordinary people. Legal tender laws thus enable the redistribution of wealth from those who produce it, mostly ordinary working people, to those who create and move around our irredeemable paper-ticket electronic money which is, in essence, just scrip.
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Bring Back Honest Money
17 July 2003 2003 Ron Paul 82:12
Repeal of legal tender laws will help restore constitutional government and protect the people’s right to a medium of exchange chosen by the market, thereby protecting their current purchasing power as well as their pensions, savings, and other promises of future payment. Because honest money serves the needs of ordinary people, instead of fiat irredeemable paper-ticket electronic money that improperly transfers the wealth of society to a small specially privileged financial elite along with other special interests, I urge my colleagues to cosponsor the Honest Money Act.
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Paper Money and Tyranny
September 5, 2003 2003 Ron Paul 93:2
Alan Greenspan, years before he became Federal Reserve Board Chairman in charge of flagrantly debasing the U.S. dollar, wrote about this connection between sound money, prosperity, and freedom. In his article “Gold and Economic Freedom” ( The Objectivist, July 1966), Greenspan starts by saying: “An almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is an issue that unites statists of all persuasions. They seem to sense…that gold and economic freedom are inseparable.” Further he states that: “Under the gold standard, a free banking system stands as the protector of an economy’s stability and balanced growth.” Astoundingly, Mr. Greenspan’s analysis of the 1929 market crash, and how the Fed precipitated the crisis, directly parallels current conditions we are experiencing under his management of the Fed. Greenspan explains: “The excess credit which the Fed pumped into the economy spilled over into the stock market- triggering a fantastic speculative boom.” And, “…By 1929 the speculative imbalances had become overwhelming and unmanageable by the Fed.” Greenspan concluded his article by stating: “In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation.” He explains that the “shabby secret” of the proponents of big government and paper money is that deficit spending is simply nothing more than a “scheme for the hidden confiscation of wealth.” Yet here we are today with a purely fiat monetary system, managed almost exclusively by Alan Greenspan, who once so correctly denounced the Fed’s role in the Depression while recognizing the need for sound money.
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Paper Money and Tyranny
September 5, 2003 2003 Ron Paul 93:4
If honest money and freedom are inseparable, as Mr. Greenspan argued, and paper money leads to tyranny, one must wonder why it’s so popular with economists, the business community, bankers, and our government officials. The simplest explanation is that it’s a human trait to always seek the comforts of wealth with the least amount of effort. This desire is quite positive when it inspires hard work and innovation in a capitalist society. Productivity is improved and the standard of living goes up for everyone. This process has permitted the poorest in today’s capitalist countries to enjoy luxuries never available to the royalty of old.
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Paper Money and Tyranny
September 5, 2003 2003 Ron Paul 93:5
But this human trait of seeking wealth and comfort with the least amount of effort is often abused. It leads some to believe that by certain monetary manipulations, wealth can be made more available to everyone. Those who believe in fiat money often believe wealth can be increased without a commensurate amount of hard work and innovation. They also come to believe that savings and market control of interest rates are not only unnecessary, but actually hinder a productive growing economy. Concern for liberty is replaced by the illusion that material benefits can be more easily obtained with fiat money than through hard work and ingenuity. The perceived benefits soon become of greater concern for society than the preservation of liberty. This does not mean proponents of fiat money embark on a crusade to promote tyranny, though that is what it leads to, but rather they hope they have found the philosopher’s stone and a modern alternative to the challenge of turning lead into gold.
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Paper Money and Tyranny
September 5, 2003 2003 Ron Paul 93:6
Our Founders thoroughly understood this issue, and warned us against the temptation to seek wealth and fortune without the work and savings that real prosperity requires. James Madison warned of “The pestilent effects of paper money,” as the Founders had vivid memories of the destructiveness of the Continental dollar. George Mason of Virginia said that he had a “Mortal hatred to paper money.” Constitutional Convention delegate Oliver Ellsworth from Connecticut thought the convention “A favorable moment to shut and bar the door against paper money.” This view of the evils of paper money was shared by almost all the delegates to the convention, and was the reason the Constitution limited congressional authority to deal with the issue and mandated that only gold and silver could be legal tender. Paper money was prohibited and no central bank was authorized. Over and above the economic reasons for honest money, however, Madison argued the moral case for such. Paper money, he explained, destroyed “The necessary confidence between man and man, on necessary confidence in public councils, on the industry and morals of people and on the character of republican government.”
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Paper Money and Tyranny
September 5, 2003 2003 Ron Paul 93:15
A fiat monetary system allows power and influence to fall into the hands of those who control the creation of new money, and to those who get to use the money or credit early in its circulation. The insidious and eventual cost falls on unidentified victims who are usually oblivious to the cause of their plight. This system of legalized plunder (though not constitutional) allows one group to benefit at the expense of another. An actual transfer of wealth goes from the poor and the middle class to those in privileged financial positions.
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Paper Money and Tyranny
September 5, 2003 2003 Ron Paul 93:17
Fiat money is also immoral because it allows government to finance special interest legislation that otherwise would have to be paid for by direct taxation or by productive enterprise. This transfer of wealth occurs without directly taking the money out of someone’s pocket. Every dollar created dilutes the value of existing dollars in circulation. Those individuals who worked hard, paid their taxes, and saved some money for a rainy day are hit the hardest, with their dollars being depreciated in value while earning interest that is kept artificially low by the Federal Reserve easy-credit policy. The easy credit helps investors and consumers who have no qualms about going into debt and even declaring bankruptcy.
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Paper Money and Tyranny
September 5, 2003 2003 Ron Paul 93:34
Economic planners of the Keynesian-socialist type have always relished control over money creation in their efforts to regulate and plan the economy. They have no qualms with using this power to pursue their egalitarian dreams of wealth redistribution. That force and fraud are used to make the economic system supposedly fairer is of little concern to them.
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Paper Money and Tyranny
September 5, 2003 2003 Ron Paul 93:39
That’s why the Fed screams about a coming deflation, so it can continue the devaluation of the dollar unabated. The politicians don’t mind, the bankers welcome the business activity, and the recipients of the funds passed out by Congress never complain. The greater the debt, the greater the need to inflate the currency, since debt cannot be the source of long-term wealth. Individuals and corporations who borrow too much eventually must cut back and pay off debt and start anew, but governments rarely do.
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Paper Money and Tyranny
September 5, 2003 2003 Ron Paul 93:40
But where’s the hitch? This process, which seems to be a creative way of paying off debt, eventually undermines the capitalist structure of the economy, thus making it difficult to produce wealth, and that’s when the whole process comes to an end. This system causes many economic problems, but most of them stem from the Fed’s interference with the market rate of interest that it achieves through credit creation and printing money.
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Paper Money and Tyranny
September 5, 2003 2003 Ron Paul 93:57
If inflation were equitable and treated all classes the same, it would be less socially divisive. But while some see their incomes going up above the rate of inflation (movie stars, CEOs, stock brokers, speculators, professional athletes,) others see their incomes stagnate like lower-middle-income workers, retired people, and farmers. Likewise, the rise in the cost of living hurts the poor and middle class more than the wealthy. Because inflation treats certain groups unfairly, anger and envy are directed toward those who have benefited.
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Paper Money and Tyranny
September 5, 2003 2003 Ron Paul 93:61
Economic intervention, financed by inflation, is high-stakes government. It provides the incentive for the big money to “invest” in gaining government control. The big money comes from those who have it- corporations and banking interests. That’s why literally billions of dollars are spent on elections and lobbying. The only way to restore equity is to change the primary function of government from economic planning and militarism to protecting liberty. Without money, the poor and middle class are disenfranchised since access for the most part requires money. Obviously, this is not a partisan issue since both major parties are controlled by wealthy special interests. Only the rhetoric is different.
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Encouraging People’s Republic Of China To Fulfill Commitments Under International Trade Agreements, Support United States Manufacturing Sector, And Establish Monetary And Financial Market Reforms
29 october 2003 2003 Ron Paul 115:6
I would also urge my colleagues to consider the benefits we receive from our relationship with China. Of course, consumers benefit from lower-priced goods. Adopting the policy urged by supporters of this bill would cause consumer prices to increase, thus reducing consumers wealth. Other producers would suffer as a result of the consumers decreased purchasing power. — While there is not an organized lobby arguing against the-policy recommendations of H. Res. 414, I doubt many of our constituents want us to increase the prices they pay for goods and services.
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A Wise Consistency
February 11, 2004 2004 Ron Paul 2:28
Fighting Terrorism With Big Government—A Convenience or Necessity? Fighting terrorism is a top concern for most Americans. It is understandable, knowing how vulnerable we now are to an attack by our enemies. But striking out against the liberties of all Americans, with the Patriot Act, the FBI, or Guantanamo-type justice will hardly address the problem. Liberty cannot be enhanced by undermining liberty! It is never necessary to sacrifice liberty to preserve it. It’s tempting to sacrifice liberty for safety, and that is the argument used all too often by the politicians seeking more power. But even that is not true. History shows that a strong desire for safety over liberty usually results in less of both. But that does not mean we should ignore the past attacks or the threat of future attacks that our enemies might unleash. First, fighting terrorism is a cliché. Terrorism is a technique or a process, and if not properly defined, the solutions will be hard to find. Terrorism is more properly defined as an attack by a guerrilla warrior who picks the time and place of the attack because he cannot match the enemy with conventional weapons. With too broad a definition of terrorism, the temptation will be to relinquish too much liberty, being fearful that behind every door and in every suitcase lurks a terrorist- planted bomb. Narrowing the definition of terrorism and recognizing why some become enemies is crucial. Understanding how maximum security is achieved in a free society is vital. We have been told that the terrorists hate us for our wealth, our freedom, and our goodness. This war cannot be won if that belief prevails.
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H. Res. 412 Honoring Men And Women Of The Drug Enforcement Administration — Part 3
3 March 2004 2004 Ron Paul 12:3
Another thing which I have not mentioned before but is worth thinking about is the inequity in the enforcement of laws. If one happens to be a wealthy, white-collar worker caught using cocaine, the odds of that individual serving time in prison is very reduced, compared to if you are caught in the inner city. It seems there is less justice for the inner city youth. This, of course, intensifies the problems of the inner city.
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Reject the Millennium Challenge Act
May 19, 2004 2004 Ron Paul 35:4
It is a good idea to pay close attention to these criteria, as they tell the real tale of this new program. First, what does “investing in people” mean? It is probably safe to assume that “investing in people” does not mean keeping taxes low and government interference to a minimum so that individuals can create wealth through private economic activity. So, in short, this program will reward socialist-style governance.
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Reject the Millennium Challenge Act
May 19, 2004 2004 Ron Paul 35:11
Though the Millennium Challenge Account is advertised as a brand new approach to foreign aid - foreign aid that really works - it is in fact expensive and counter-productive, and will be very unlikely to affect real change in the countries it purports to help. The wisest approach to international economic development is for the United States to lead by example, to re-embrace the kind of economic policies that led us to become wealthy in the first place. This means less government, less taxation, no foreign meddling. Demonstrating the effectiveness of limited government in creating wealth would be the greatest gift we could send overseas.
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The Same Old Failed Policies in Iraq
June 3, 2004 2004 Ron Paul 37:14
That’s when the true wealth of the country will become self-evident and we will no longer be able to afford the extravagant expense of pursuing an American empire. No nation has ever been able to finance excessive foreign entanglements and domestic entitlements through printing press money and borrowing from abroad.
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Government Spending – A Tax on the Middle Class
July 8, 2004 2004 Ron Paul 52:3
Unfortunately no one in Washington, especially those who defend the poor and the middle class, cares about this subject. Instead, all we hear is that tax cuts for the rich are the source of every economic ill in the country. Anyone truly concerned about the middle class suffering from falling real wages, under-employment, a rising cost of living, and a decreasing standard of living should pay a lot more attention to monetary policy. Federal spending, deficits, and Federal Reserve mischief hurt the poor while transferring wealth to the already rich. This is the real problem, and raising taxes on those who produce wealth will only make conditions worse.
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Government Spending – A Tax on the Middle Class
July 8, 2004 2004 Ron Paul 52:11
The “tax” is paid when prices rise as the result of a depreciating dollar. Savers and those living on fixed or low incomes are hardest hit as the cost of living rises. Low and middle incomes families suffer the most as they struggle to make ends meet while wealth is literally transferred from the middle class to the wealthy. Government officials stick to their claim that no significant inflation exists, even as certain necessary costs are skyrocketing and incomes are stagnating. The transfer of wealth comes as savers and fixed income families lose purchasing power, large banks benefit, and corporations receive plush contracts from the government- as is the case with military contractors. These companies use the newly printed money before it circulates, while the middle class is forced to accept it at face value later on. This becomes a huge hidden tax on the middle class, many of whom never object to government spending in hopes that the political promises will be fulfilled and they will receive some of the goodies. But surprise- it doesn’t happen. The result instead is higher prices for prescription drugs, energy, and other necessities. The freebies never come.
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Government Spending – A Tax on the Middle Class
July 8, 2004 2004 Ron Paul 52:17
The moral of the story is that spending is always a tax. The inflation tax, though hidden, only makes things worse. Taxing, borrowing, and inflating to satisfy wealth transfers from the middle class to the rich in an effort to pay for profligate government spending, can never make a nation wealthier. But it certainly can make it poorer.
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Financing Operations, Export Financing, And Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2005
15 July 2004 2004 Ron Paul 60:2
Libertarians support this as well and for a precise reason. A free market libertarian does not believe in welfare for anybody, let alone the rich, and it is particularly gnawing to see the subsidies go to the very wealthy.
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Where To From Here?
November 20, 2004 2004 Ron Paul 81:73
6. History shows the size of the state always grows when we’re at war. Under conditions of war civil liberties are always sacrificed — thus begging the point. We go hither and yon to spread our message of freedom, while sacrificing our freedoms here at home and eating away at the wealth of the country.
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America’s Foreign Policy Of Intervention
26 January 2005 2005 Ron Paul 6:9
Economic laws ultimately prevail over bad judgment, but tragically, the greater the wealth of the country, the longer the flawed policy lasts. We will probably not be any different.
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America’s Foreign Policy Of Intervention
26 January 2005 2005 Ron Paul 6:10
We are still a wealthy Nation and our currency is still trusted by the world. Yet we are vulnerable to some harsh realities about our true wealth and the burden of our future commitments. Overwhelming debt and the precarious nature of the dollar should serve to restrain our determined leaders. Yet they show little concern for our deficits. Rest assured, though, the limitations of our endless foreign adventurism and spending will become apparent to everyone at some point in time.
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Sense Of The Congress Resolution That The United States Should Not Ratify The Law Of The Sea Treaty
10 February 2005 2005 Ron Paul 20:2
The Law of the Sea Treaty was conceived in the early 1970s by the “New International Economic Order,” a United Nations political movement designed to transfer wealth and technology from the industrial nations to communist and undeveloped nations. President Ronald Reagan recognized the threat this treaty would pose to America’s sovereignty and economic interests and rightly rejected the Treaty in 1982.
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“Emergency” Supplemental Spending Bill
16 March 2005 2005 Ron Paul 29:3
We are told that this is emergency spending, and that we therefore must not question this enormous expenditure. Does an emergency require sending billions of American taxpayers’ dollars overseas as foreign aid an emergency? This bill is filled with foreign aid spending. If we pass this ill-conceived legislation, we will spend $656 million for tsunami relief; $94 million for Darfur, Sudan; $150 million for food aid, most to Liberia and Sudan; $580 million for “peacekeeping” overseas; $582 million to build a new American embassy in Iraq; $76 million to build a new airport in Kuwait (one of the wealthiest countries on earth); $257 million for counter drug efforts in Afghanistan; $372 million for health, reconstruction, and alternative development programs to help farmers stop raising poppy; $200 million in economic aid for the Palestinians; $150 million for Pakistan (run by an unelected dictator); $200 million for Jordan; $34 million for Ukraine.
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Hypocrisy and the Ordeal of Terri Schiavo
April 6, 2005 2005 Ron Paul 34:13
First, all wealth transfers depend on an authoritarian state willing to use lethal force to satisfy the politicians’ notion of an unachievable fair society. Robbing Peter to pay Paul, no matter how well intentioned, can never be justified. It’s theft, plain and simple, and morally wrong. Actually, welfare is anti-prosperity; so it can’t be pro-life. Too often good intentions are motivated only by the good that someone believes will result from the transfer program. They never ask who must pay, who must be threatened, who must be arrested and imprisoned. They never ask whether the welfare funds taken by forcible taxation could have helped someone in a private or voluntary way.
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The Hidden Cost of War
June 14, 2005 2005 Ron Paul 58:39
A free society produces more wealth for more people than any other. That wealth for many years can be confiscated to pay for the militarism advocated by those who promote preemptive war. But militarism and its costs undermine the very market system that provided the necessary resources to begin with. As this happens, productivity and wealth is diminished, putting pressure on authorities to ruthlessly extract even more funds from the people. For what they cannot collect through taxes they take through currency inflation-- eventually leading to an inability to finance unnecessary and questionable warfare and bringing the process to an end. It happened to the Soviets and their military machine collapsed. Hitler destroyed Germany’s economy, but he financed his aggression for several years by immediately stealing the gold reserves of every country he occupied. That, too, was self-limited and he met his military defeat. For us it’s less difficult since we can confiscate the wealth of American citizens and the savers of the world merely by printing more dollars to support our militarism. Though different in detail, we too must face the prospect that this system of financing is seriously flawed, and our expensive policy of worldwide interventionism will collapse. Only a profound change in attitudes regarding our foreign policy, our fiscal policy, and our monetary policy will save us from ourselves.
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The Hidden Cost of War
June 14, 2005 2005 Ron Paul 58:41
This type of society would be greatly enhanced with a worldwide commodity standard of money. This would prevent the imbalances that are a great burden to today’s economy. Our current account deficits and total foreign indebtedness would not occur under an honest non-political commodity money. Competitive devaluations and abnormally fixed exchanged rates would not be possible as tools of protectionism. We can be certain that the distortions in trade balance and the WTO trade wars that are multiplying will eventually lead to a serious challenge to worldwide trade. The tragedy of trade wars is that they frequently lead to military wars between nations, and until the wealth is consumed and young men are no longer available to fight and die the process will cost plenty.
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The Hidden Cost of War
June 14, 2005 2005 Ron Paul 58:42
We must not forget that real peace and prosperity are available to us. America has a grand tradition in this regard despite her shortcomings. It’s just that in recent decades the excessive unearned wealth available to us to run our welfare/warfare state has distracted us from our important traditions-- honoring liberty and emphasizing self-reliance and responsibility. Up until the 20 th century we were much less eager to go around the world searching for dragons to slay. That tradition is a good one, and one that we must soon reconsider before the ideal of personal liberty is completely destroyed.
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Amend The PATRIOT Act — Part 2
21 July 2005 2005 Ron Paul 88:5
And, quite frankly, I do not believe the cause is because we are free and democratic and wealthy. There is no evidence whatsoever to show that that is the motivation of terrorist attacks. And for us to continue to believe that is the sole reason for attacks, I think we are misled. And we are driven to want to protect our people, which I understand it is well motivated, but it will not solve the problem unless we eventually address that subject of why does it happen. It is not because we are free. And, ironically, in many ways we are making ourselves less free with some of the provisions in this bill.
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Why We Fight
September 8, 2005 2005 Ron Paul 95:15
Oil in the Middle East has been a big issue since the industrial revolution, when it was realized that the black substance bubbling out of the ground in places like Iraq had great value. It’s interesting to note that in the early 20 th century Germany, fully aware of oil’s importance, allied itself with the Turkish Ottoman Empire and secured the earliest rights to drill Iraqi oil. They built the Anatalia railroad between Baghdad and Basra, and obtained oil and mineral rights on twenty kilometers on each side of this right-of-way. World War I changed all this, allowing the French and the British to divide the oil wealth of the entire Middle East.
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The Coming Category 5 Financial Hurricane
September 15, 2005 2005 Ron Paul 98:3
Congress reacted to Katrina in the expected irresponsible manner. It immediately appropriated over $60 billion with little planning or debate. Taxes won’t be raised to pay the bill-- fortunately. There will be no offsets or spending reductions to pay the bill. Welfare and entitlement spending is sacrosanct. Spending for the war in Iraq and the military-industrial complex is sacrosanct. There is no guarantee that gracious foreign lenders will step forward, especially without raising interest rates. This means the Federal Reserve and Treasury will print the money needed to pay the bills. The sad truth is that monetary debasement hurts poor people the most-- the very people we saw on TV after Katrina. Inflating our currency hurts the poor and destroys the middle class, while transferring wealth to the ruling class. This occurs in spite of good intentions and misplaced compassion.
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The End Of Dollar Hegemony
15 February 2006 2006 Ron Paul 3:6
This system of government worked well for a while, but the moral decline of the people led to an unwillingness to produce for themselves. There was a limit to the number of countries that could be sacked for their wealth, and this always brought empires to an end. When gold no longer could be obtained, their military might crumbled. In those days, those who held the gold truly wrote the rules and lived well.
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The End Of Dollar Hegemony
15 February 2006 2006 Ron Paul 3:7
That general rule has held fast throughout the ages. When gold was used and the rules protected honest commerce, productive nations thrived. Whenever wealthy nations, those with powerful armies and gold, strived only for empire and easy fortunes to support welfare at home, those nations failed.
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The End Of Dollar Hegemony
15 February 2006 2006 Ron Paul 3:9
Since printing paper money is nothing short of counterfeiting, the issuer of the international currency must always be the country with the military might to guarantee control over the system. This magnificent scheme seems the perfect system for obtaining perpetual wealth for the country that issues the de facto world currency.
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The End Of Dollar Hegemony
15 February 2006 2006 Ron Paul 3:12
When paper money is rejected, or when gold runs out, wealth and political stability are lost. The country then must go from living beyond its means to living beneath its means until the economic and political systems adjust to the new rules; rules no longer written by those who ran the now defunct printing press.
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The End Of Dollar Hegemony
15 February 2006 2006 Ron Paul 3:69
True reform is impossible without addressing the immorality of wealth redistribution. Merely electing new leaders and writing more rules to regulate those who petition Congress will achieve nothing.
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The End Of Dollar Hegemony
15 February 2006 2006 Ron Paul 3:74
The steady erosion of real wealth in this country and the dependency on government generated by welfare-ism and warfare-ism presents itself as the crisis of the ages. Lobbying scandals and the need for new leadership are mere symptoms of a much, much deeper problem.
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The End Of Dollar Hegemony
15 February 2006 2006 Ron Paul 3:76
The Founders detested democracy and avoided the use of the word in all the early documents. Today, most Americans accept without question a policy of sacrificing life, property and dollars to force democracy on a country 6,000 miles away. This tells us how little opposition there is to democracy. No one questions the principle that a majority electorate should be allowed to rule the country, dictate rights, and redistribute wealth. Our system of democracy has come to mean worshiping the notion that a majority vote for the distribution of government largesse, loot confiscated from the American people through an immoral tax system, is morally and constitutionally acceptable.
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The End Of Dollar Hegemony
15 February 2006 2006 Ron Paul 3:97
But if the Federal Reserve did not pick up the slack and create huge amounts of new credit and money out of thin air, interest rates would rise and call a halt to the charade. The people who suffer from a depreciated dollar don’t understand why they suffer, while the people who benefit promote the corrupt system. The wealthy clean up on Wall Street and the unsophisticated buy in at the market tops. Wealth is transferred from one group to another, and it is all related to the system that allows politicians and the central banks to create money out of thin air. It is literally legalized counterfeiting.
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The End Of Dollar Hegemony
15 February 2006 2006 Ron Paul 3:98
Is it any wonder jobs go overseas? True capital only comes from savings, and Americans save nothing. We only borrow and consume. A counterfeiter has no incentive to take his newly created money and build factories. The incentive for Americans is to buy consumers goods from other countries whose people are willing to save and invest in their factories and jobs. The only way we can continue this charade is to borrow excess dollars back from the foreign governments who sell us goods and perpetuate the pretense of wealth that we enjoy.
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The End Of Dollar Hegemony
15 February 2006 2006 Ron Paul 3:102
The remaining wealth that we struggle to hold on to is based on debt, future tax revenues, and our ability to manufacture new tax dollars without restraint.
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The End Of Dollar Hegemony
15 February 2006 2006 Ron Paul 3:106
A free nation as it moves towards authoritarianism tolerates and hides a lot of the abuse in the system. The human impulse for wealth creation is hard to destroy, but in the end it will happen here if true reform of our economic, monetary, and political system is not accomplished.
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The End Of Dollar Hegemony
15 February 2006 2006 Ron Paul 3:111
Counterfeiting money never creates wealth. It only steals wealth from the unsuspecting. The Federal Reserve creation of money is exactly the same. Increasing the dollars in circulation can only diminish the value of each existing dollar. Only production and jobs can make a country wealthy in the long run. Today, it is obvious our country is becoming poorer and more uneasy as our jobs and capital go overseas.
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Iran, The Next Neocon Target
5 April 2006 2006 Ron Paul 21:51
Prolonged wars, as this one has become, have profound consequences. No matter how much positive spin is put on it, war never makes a society wealthier. World War II was not a solution to the Depression, as many claim. If $1 billion is spent on weapons of war, the GDP records positive growth in that amount, but the expenditure is consumed by destruction of the weapons or bombs it bought, and the real economy is denied $1 billion to produce products that would have raised someone’s standard of living.
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Gold And The U.S. Dollar
25 April 2006 2006 Ron Paul 23:8
One of the characteristics of commodity money, one that originated naturally in the marketplace, is that it must serve as a store of value. Gold and silver meet the test; paper does not. Because of this profound difference, the incentive and wisdom of holding emergency funds in the form of gold becomes attractive when the official currency is being devalued. It is more attractive than trying to save wealth in the form of a fiat currency, even when earning some nominal interest.
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Gold And The U.S. Dollar
25 April 2006 2006 Ron Paul 23:16
Since gold has proven to be the real money of the ages, we see once again a shift in wealth from the West to the East, just as we saw a loss of our industrial base in the same direction.
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Gold And The U.S. Dollar
25 April 2006 2006 Ron Paul 23:30
Already we see this trend developing, which surely will accelerate in the not- too-distant future. Part of this reaction will be from those who seek a haven to protect their wealth, not invest, by treating gold and silver as universal and historic money. This means holding fewer dollars that are decreasing in value while holding gold as it increases in value.
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Gold And The U.S. Dollar
25 April 2006 2006 Ron Paul 23:33
The Fed tries to keep the consumer spending spree going, not through hard work and savings, but by creating artificial wealth in stock market bubbles and housing bubbles. When these distortions run these courses and are discovered, the corrections will be quite painful as was witnessed with the collapse of the NASDAQ bubble. Likewise a fiat monetary system encourages speculation and unsound borrowing.
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Gold And The U.S. Dollar
25 April 2006 2006 Ron Paul 23:52
Empires always fail, and expenses always exceed projections. Harmful unintended consequences are the rule, not the exception. Welfare for the poor is inefficient and wasteful. The beneficiaries are rarely the poor themselves, but, instead, the politicians, the bureaucrats or the wealthy. The same is true of all foreign aid. It is nothing more than a program that steals from the poor in a rich country and gives to the rich leaders of a poorer country.
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Gold And The U.S. Dollar
25 April 2006 2006 Ron Paul 23:53
Whether it is war or welfare payments, it always means higher taxes, inflation and debt. Whether it is the extraction of wealth from the productive economy, the distortion of the market by interest rate manipulation or spending for war and welfare, it can’t happen without infringing upon personal liberty.
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Gold And The U.S. Dollar
25 April 2006 2006 Ron Paul 23:83
Holding gold helps preserve and store wealth; but technically, gold is not a true investment.
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Gold And The U.S. Dollar
25 April 2006 2006 Ron Paul 23:88
If ever there was a time to get a handle on what sound money is and what it means, that time is today. Inflation, as exposed by high gold prices, transfers wealth from the middle class to the rich, as real wages decline while the salaries of CEOs, movie stars, and athletes skyrocket, along with the profits of the military industrial complex, the oil industry, and other special interests.
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Plan Colombia
25 April 2006 2006 Ron Paul 24:1
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce the following article detailing the complete failure of “Plan Colombia” into the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD. As the article points out, despite more than 4 billion dollars being sent to Colombia to fight the “war on drugs,” the coca crop grew by 21 percent last year. After six years of massive wealth transfers from U.S. taxpayers to the Colombian government, not only has no progress been made, but in fact things are getting worse. Unfortunately, with the way things are done in Washington, this failure of “Plan Colombia” will likely result in calls for even more money to be tossed in the black hole of the drug war. It would be far better to learn from our mistakes and abandon the failed “Plan Colombia.”
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Jack Abramoff Scandal
3 May 2006 2006 Ron Paul 33:1
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, the public outrage over the Jack Abramoff scandal presented Congress with an opportunity to support real reform by addressing the root cause of the corruption: the amount of money and power located in Washington, D.C. A true reform agenda would focus on ending federal funding for unconstitutional programs, beginning with those programs that benefit wealthy corporations and powerful special interests. Congress should also change the way we do business in the House by passing the Sunlight Rule (H. Res. 709). The Sunlight Rule ensures that members of the House of Representatives and the American public have adequate time to read and study legislation before it is voted upon. Ending the practice of rushing major legislation to the House floor before members have had a chance to find out the details of bills will do more to improve the legislative process and restore public confidence in this institution than will imposing new registration requirements on lobbyists or making staffers waste their time at an “ethics class.”
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Nonintervention
29 June 2006 2006 Ron Paul 50:4
But why I have, for as long as I can remember, been preaching the doctrine of the Founding Fathers on foreign policy is because I think it would be so much better for us. We would fight fewer wars, we would be a lot wealthier, there would be a lot less killing, and it would be so much better for us, and that is simply a policy of nonintervention. And as I stated in my prepared remarks, this is a good moral position, it is a good constitutional position, and it is a good practical position.
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H.R. 5068, the Export-Import Reauthorization Act
25 July 2006 2006 Ron Paul 69:5
Redistribution from the poor and middle class to the wealthy is the most indefensible aspect of the welfare state, yet it is the most accepted form of welfare.
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H.R. 5068, the Export-Import Reauthorization Act
25 July 2006 2006 Ron Paul 69:16
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, Eximbank distorts the market by allowing government bureaucrats to make economic decisions in place of individual consumers. Eximbank also violates basic principles of morality, by forcing working Americans to subsidize the trade of wealthy companies that could easily afford to subsidize their own trade, as well as subsidizing brutal governments like Red China and the Sudan. Eximbank also violates the limitations on congressional power to take the property of individual citizens and use it to benefit powerful special interests. It is for these reasons that I urge my colleagues to reject H.R. 5068, the Export-Import Bank Reauthorization Act.
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Big-Government Solutions Don’t Work
7 september 2006 2006 Ron Paul 74:16
The Big Government nanny state is based on the assumption that free markets cannot provide the maximum good for the largest number of people. It assumes people are not smart or responsible enough to take care of themselves, and thus their needs must be filled through the government’s forcible redistribution of wealth.
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Big-Government Solutions Don’t Work
7 september 2006 2006 Ron Paul 74:90
Economic realities will prevail regardless of the enthusiasm by most Members of Congress for a continued expansion of the welfare state and support for our dangerously aggressive foreign policy. The welfare/warfare state will come to an end when the dollar fails and the wealth simply runs out.
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The War In Iraq
5 January 2007 2007 Ron Paul 7:7
Three thousand American military personnel are dead. More than 22,000 are wounded, and tens of thousands will be psychologically traumatized by their tours of duty in Iraq. Little concern is given to the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed in this war. We have spent $400 billion so far with no end in sight. This money we do not have. It is all borrowed from countries like China that increasingly succeed in the global economy while we drain wealth from our citizens through heavy taxation and insidious inflation. Our manufacturing base is now nearly extinct. Where the additional U.S. troops in Iraq will come from is anybody’s guess, but surely they won’t be redeployed from Japan, Korea, or Europe.
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Statement for Hearing before the House Financial Services Committee, “Monetary Policy and the State of the Economy”
15 February 2007 2007 Ron Paul 32:4
Even before a currency collapse occurs, the damage done by a fiat system is significant. Our monetary system insidiously transfers wealth from the poor and middle class to the privileged rich. Wages never keep up with the profits of Wall Street and the banks, thus sowing the seeds of class discontent. When economic trouble hits, free markets and free trade often are blamed, while the harmful effects of a fiat monetary system are ignored. We deceive ourselves that all is well with the economy, and ignore the fundamental flaws that are a source of growing discontent among those who have not shared in the abundance of recent years.
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Statement for Hearing before the House Financial Services Committee, “Monetary Policy and the State of the Economy”
15 February 2007 2007 Ron Paul 32:5
Few understand that our consumption and apparent wealth is dependent on a current account deficit of $800 billion per year. This deficit shows that much of our prosperity is based on borrowing rather than a true increase in production. Statistics show year after year that our productive manufacturing jobs continue to go overseas. This phenomenon is not seen as a consequence of the international fiat monetary system, where the United States government benefits as the issuer of the world’s reserve currency.
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In The Name Of Patriotism (Who Are The Patriots?)
22 May 2007 2007 Ron Paul 55:20
A free society rejects all notions of involuntary servitude, whether by draft or the confiscation of the fruits of our labor through the personal income tax. A more sophisticated and less well-known technique for enhancing the state is the manipulation and transfer of wealth through the fiat monetary system operated by the secretive Federal Reserve.
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In The Name Of Patriotism (Who Are The Patriots?)
22 May 2007 2007 Ron Paul 55:30
Our enemies say, boo, and we jump, we panic, and then we punish ourselves. We are worse than a child being afraid of the dark. But in a way, the fear of indefinable terrorism is based on our inability to admit the truth about why there is a desire by a small number of angry radical Islamists to kill Americans. It is certainly not because they are jealous of our wealth and freedoms.
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In The Name Of Patriotism (Who Are The Patriots?)
22 May 2007 2007 Ron Paul 55:51
But let it not be said that we did nothing. Let not those who love the power of the welfare/warfare state label the dissenters of authoritarianism as unpatriotic or uncaring. Patriotism is more closely linked to dissent than it is to conformity and a blind desire for safety and security. Understanding the magnificent rewards of a free society makes us unbashful in its promotion, fully realizing that maximum wealth is created and the greatest chance for peace comes from a society respectful of individual liberty.
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Opening Statement Committee on Financial Services World Bank Hearing
22 May 2007 2007 Ron Paul 56:4
Western governments tax their citizens to fund the World Bank, lend this money to corrupt Third World dictators who abscond with the funds, and then demand repayment which is extracted through taxation from poor Third World citizens, rather than from the government officials responsible for the embezzlement. It is in essence a global transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. Taxpayers around the world are forced to subsidize the lavish lifestyles of Third World dictators and highly-paid World Bank bureaucrats who don't even pay income tax.
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Introduction Of The Honest Money Act
15 June 2007 2007 Ron Paul 64:6
Legal tender laws may disadvantage average citizens but they do help power-hungry politicians use inflationary monetary policy to expand the government beyond its proper limits. However, the primary beneficiaries of legal tender laws are the special interests who are granted the privilege of producing and controlling the paper money forced on the public via legal tender laws. Legal tender laws thus represent the primary means of reverse redistribution where the wealth of the working class is given, via laws forcing people to use debased money, to well-heeled, politically powerful bankers.
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House Financial Services Committee – Subcommittee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy
17 October 2007 2007 Ron Paul 99:4
While many innocent investors are lured into the stock market as a result of our flawed expansionary government policies leading to visions of ever-increasing wealth, and may not be entirely at fault for their losses, the principle of caveat emptor seems to have been forgotten. In the case of a burst asset bubble or a stock's decline in price, some investors will lose out. It might be painful, it may have come about through injustice and government meddling, but government wrongdoing cannot be undone by more government wrongdoing.
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Introduction Of Property Tax Deduction For All Act
5 December 2007 2007 Ron Paul 105:2
The Property Tax Deduction for All Act will help millions of Americans who struggle with high property taxes, but because they do not itemize, are unable to take advantage of the Federal deduction for property taxes. Extending the property tax deduction to all homeowners will especially benefit senior citizens, whose homes often are the major part of their wealth, and young families struggling to cope with the costs of owning a new home. I respectfully urge my colleagues to help ensure all homeowners can take advantage of the tax deduction for property taxes by cosponsoring this legislation.
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Statement on Competing Currencies
February 13, 2008 2008 Ron Paul 4:13
The final step to ensuring competing currencies is to eliminate capital gains and sales taxes on gold and silver coins. Under current federal law, coins are considered collectibles, and are liable for capital gains taxes. Short-term capital gains rates are at income tax levels, up to 35 percent, while long-term capital gains taxes are assessed at the collectibles rate of 28 percent. Furthermore, these taxes actually tax monetary debasement. As the dollar weakens, the nominal dollar value of gold increases. The purchasing power of gold may remain relatively constant, but as the nominal dollar value increases, the federal government considers this an increase in wealth, and taxes accordingly. Thus, the more the dollar is debased, the more capital gains taxes must be paid on holdings of gold and other precious metals.
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Foreign Government Investment in the U.S. Economy and Financial Sector
March 5, 2008 2008 Ron Paul 11:1
Mr. Chairman, many Americans have expressed concern over the growing role played by sovereign wealth funds in the U.S. economy. Such fears are to a large extent misplaced, however, as we should be more concerned with the underlying causes that have allowed sovereign wealth funds to accumulate as much capital as they have.
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Foreign Government Investment in the U.S. Economy and Financial Sector
March 5, 2008 2008 Ron Paul 11:2
The two major types of sovereign wealth funds are those which are funded by proceeds from natural resources sales, and those funded by accumulation of foreign exchange. The former category includes sovereign wealth funds in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the UAE. Flush with dollars due to the high price of oil, they are looking for opportunities to make that money work for them. The high price of oil is due in large part to our inflationary monetary policy. We have literally exported inflation across the globe, spurring malinvestment and a subsequent commodities boom.
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Foreign Government Investment in the U.S. Economy and Financial Sector
March 5, 2008 2008 Ron Paul 11:3
The second major category of sovereign wealth funds includes China’s sovereign wealth fund, which has the potential to draw on China’s more than $1 trillion in foreign exchange reserves. Because of China’s current account surplus, it continues to accumulate foreign exchange. Much of this is due to the United States’ persistent current account deficit. Inflationary monetary policy and a desire to stimulate the economy at all costs has led us to become the world’s largest debtor, and this debt must eventually be repaid. The current account deficit has come about because our economy does not produce enough capital goods to satisfy the wants of our foreign creditors. Tired of holding increasingly worthless dollars, it is only natural that our creditors would want to purchase tangibles, which in the present case are stakes in American companies.
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Foreign Government Investment in the U.S. Economy and Financial Sector
March 5, 2008 2008 Ron Paul 11:4
Rather than bemoaning the fact that foreign governments are using their dollars to purchase stakes in American companies, we should welcome the stability that such investment is bringing to our economy. While I am reluctant as anyone in this room to involve any government in any sort of intervention into the market, the fact remains that without injections of capital from foreign wealth funds the results of the subprime crisis would have been far worse for many financial firms. Even now we read that Citigroup, despite the massive funding it has received from sovereign wealth funds, is in danger of collapse unless it receives additional funding.
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Foreign Government Investment in the U.S. Economy and Financial Sector
March 5, 2008 2008 Ron Paul 11:5
I have always been a staunch advocate of abandoning our loose monetary policy and facing the consequences now, rather than continuing easy money in the hopes of never having to face a recession. Now that it is clear that decades of Federal Reserve monetary manipulation have led to a severe recession, the thought of sovereign wealth funds investing in the financial sector holds far more appeal than that of a complete collapse of major industry players which would cause catastrophic effects throughout the economy.
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Foreign Government Investment in the U.S. Economy and Financial Sector
March 5, 2008 2008 Ron Paul 11:6
Sovereign wealth funds are a necessary consequence of fiscal and monetary policies which have left us overextended. Actions to stifle the operations of sovereign wealth funds and corresponding retaliatory actions by foreign countries could have the same detrimental effects on the economy as the trade wars begun after passage of the Smoot-Hawley tariff. Rather than take actions to limit or prohibit the actions of sovereign wealth funds, I would urge my colleagues to take action to end our inflationary monetary policy.
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Statement: “Something Big is Happening”
9 July 2008 2008 Ron Paul 42:3
America , with her traditions of free markets and property rights, led the way toward great wealth and progress throughout the world as well as at home. Since we have lost our confidence in the principles of liberty, self reliance, hard work and frugality, and instead took on empire building, financed through inflation and debt, all this has changed. This is indeed frightening and an historic event.
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Statement: “Something Big is Happening”
9 July 2008 2008 Ron Paul 42:6
Instead, the wealth and freedom we now enjoy are shrinking and rest upon a fragile philosophic infrastructure. It is not unlike the levies and bridges in our own country that our system of war and welfare has caused us to ignore.
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Statement: “Something Big is Happening”
9 July 2008 2008 Ron Paul 42:20
The mistakes made with excessive credit at artificially low rates are huge, and the market is demanding a correction. This involves excessive debt, misdirected investments, over-investments, and all the other problems caused by the government when spending the money they should never have had. Foreign militarism, welfare handouts and $80 trillion entitlement promises are all coming to an end. We don’t have the money or the wealth-creating capacity to catch up and care for all the needs that now exist because we rejected the market economy, sound money, self reliance and the principles of liberty.
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Statement on Sovereign Wealth Funds
September 10, 2008 2008 Ron Paul 58:1
Mr. Chairman, once again we confront the issue of sovereign wealth funds, an issue which has become quite important due to the large amount of dollars and dollar-denominated bonds held by foreign governments, and the fears of these governments given the dollar’s precipitous decline over the past few years. The past few days have been quite interesting, with speculation that one of the reasons for the government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was the more than $1 trillion in Fannie and Freddie debt held by foreign governments. The threat of default on this debt would have undoubtedly had massive repercussions on the value of the dollar and might have unleashed the “nuclear threat” of a massive international sell-off of government and agency debt.
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Statement on Sovereign Wealth Funds
September 10, 2008 2008 Ron Paul 58:3
In either case, most politicians overlook the fact that we are in this situation because of our loose monetary and fiscal policy. Actions that would stifle the operations of foreign sovereign wealth funds would likely result in corresponding retaliatory actions by foreign countries against American pension funds and could have the same detrimental effects on the economy as the trade wars begun after passage of the Smoot-Hawley tariff. Rather than limiting or prohibiting investment by sovereign wealth funds, we should be concerned with striking at the root of the problem and addressing inflationary monetary and fiscal policy.
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Statement on HR 1424
October 3, 2008 2008 Ron Paul 67:4
With deposit insurance increasing to $250,000 and banks able to set their reserves to zero, we will undoubtedly see future increases in unsound lending. No one in our society seems to understand that wealth is not created by government fiat, is not created by banks, and is not created through the manipulation of interest rates and provision of easy credit. A debt-based society cannot prosper and is doomed to fail, as debts must either be defaulted on or repaid, neither resolution of which presents this country with a pleasant view of the future. True wealth can only come about through savings, the deferral of present consumption in order to provide for a higher level of future consumption. Instead, our government through its own behavior and through its policies encourages us to live beyond our means, reducing existing capital and mortgaging our future to pay for present consumption.
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LIVING BENEATH OUR MEANS
January 21, 2009 2009 Ron Paul 10:3
The fiction that the appreciating prices of houses and stocks and other assets serve as savings is always self- limited and ends with pain. Without a source of newly borrowed funds, once the value of stocks and houses depreciates, the individual comes to the realization that hard work and effort are required to produce sustained wealth. Working minimally is replaced with working maximally to survive, as well as to pay for the extravagance of previous years. The consequence is more work and a diminished standard of living.
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FEDERAL RESERVE IS THE CULPRIT
February 25, 2009 2009 Ron Paul 17:8
Inflation is the most vicious and regressive of all forms of taxation. It transfers wealth from the middle class to the privileged rich.
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FEDERAL RESERVE IS THE CULPRIT
February 25, 2009 2009 Ron Paul 17:10
Inflating is never a benefit to freedom- loving people. It destroys prosperity and feeds the fires of war. It is responsible for recessions and depressions. It is deceptive, addictive, and causes delusions of grandeur with regards to wealth and knowledge.
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FEDERAL RESERVE IS THE CULPRIT
February 25, 2009 2009 Ron Paul 17:11
Wealth cannot be achieved by creating money by fiat. It instead destroys wealth and it rewards the special interests. Depending on monetary fraud for national prosperity or a reversal of our downward spiral is riskier than depending on the lottery.
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RECOGNIZING 30TH ANNIVERSARY OF EGYPT-ISRAEL PEACE TREATY
March 30, 2009 2009 Ron Paul 40:3
What the resolution fails to mention, and the reason we should not endorse the treaty as a model, is that at the time the peace was being negotiated at Camp David the United States committed itself to an enormous financial aid package to both Egypt and Israel in exchange for their accession to the treaty. Over the past thirty years, the United States taxpayer has transferred to – some might say “bribed” – Israel and Egypt more well over $100 billion as a payoff for their leaders’ signature on the treaty. Particularly in this time of economic hardship, where so many Americans are out of work and facing great financial challenges, I hardly believe we should be celebrating that which increases the strain on taxpayers. I believe we should cease all foreign aid to all countries, as it is a counterproductive and unconstitutional transfer of wealth from U.S. taxpayers to governments overseas.
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CURRENT CONDITIONS OR JUST A BAD DREAM
May 19, 2009 2009 Ron Paul 56:3
We’re now in the midst of unlimited spending of the people’s money, exorbitant taxation, deficits of trillions of dollars – spent on a failed welfare/warfare state; an epidemic of cronyism; unlimited supplies of paper money equated with wealth.
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INTRODUCING THE COMPLETE AND PERMANENT PROPERTY TAX DEDUCTION ACT OF 2009
July 14, 2009 2009 Ron Paul 77:2
The Complete and Permanent Property Tax Deduction Act will help millions of Americans who struggle with high property taxes. Making the property tax deduction permanent will especially benefit senior citizens, whose homes often are the major part of their wealth, and young families struggling to cope with the costs of owning new homes. I respectfully urge my colleagues to help ensure all homeowners can continue to take advantage of the property tax deduction by cosponsoring this legislation.
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INTRODUCING THE FREE COMPETITION IN CURRENCY ACT
December 9, 2009 2009 Ron Paul 102:12
The final step to ensuring competing currencies is to eliminate capital gains and sales taxes on gold and silver coins. Under current federal law, coins are considered collectibles, and are liable for capital gains taxes. Short- term capital gains rates are at income tax levels, up to 35 percent, while long-term capital gains taxes are assessed at the collectibles rate of 28 percent. Furthermore, these taxes actually tax monetary debasement. As the dollar weakens, the nominal dollar value of gold increases. The purchasing power of gold may remain relatively constant, but as the nominal dollar value increases, the Federal Government considers this an increase in wealth, and taxes accordingly. Thus, the more the dollar is debased, the more capital gains taxes must be paid on holdings of gold and other metals.
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- The worst day of the year
20 March 1997 Texas Straight Talk 20 March 1997 verse 11 ... Cached
The first piece of legislation is the Family Preservation Act. This legislation will repeal the Estate and Gift Taxes, which I refer to as "death taxes." These taxes are the most despicable, for the laws assume that after you have worked hard all your life, prepared for your family's future, that when you die the government has first claim to everything you own. Not only do they tax your productivity while you are alive, they tax your accumulated "after-tax" wealth once you have died, thereby punishing your spouse and children - it is as if the government owns your life, and has a fundamental right to all you have accomplished. The hardest people hit by these taxes are not the rich, but rather the middle-class Americans who own farms and ranches right here in the 14th District.
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- The worst day of the year
20 March 1997 Texas Straight Talk 20 March 1997 verse 12 ... Cached
A second piece of legislation I will be supporting is the Capital Gains Reduction Act. Right now, the profit someone may make off of selling a house, trading stocks or other activities, is taxed at 28 percent or higher. This bill would cut that rate in half. Again, the people hurt most by the capital gains tax are not the wealthy, but the middle and low income families. When a parent has provided for their child's future by investing for college, it is immoral that the government should be able to step in and take almost a third. The taxes paid on those gains could have paid for an extra semester, or more.
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- Gun Control? Disarm The Bureaucrats!
20 October 1997 Texas Straight Talk 20 October 1997 verse 6 ... Cached
The enforcement of the interventionist, welfare-warfare state requires a growing army of thriving bureaucrats. With special interests demanding favors, federal office-holders can only meet those demands by abusing the rights of those who produce wealth and cherish liberty. The resentment of those being abused is then directed at the government agents who come to collect, even though those agents are merely the front-men for the special interests and their elected puppets. As resentment toward these agents increases and becomes more hostile, the natural consequence has been for the bureaucrats - the intruders upon liberty - to arm themselves as protection against the angry victims of government abuse.
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- Taxes and regulations will never lead to prosperity
08 December 1997 Texas Straight Talk 08 December 1997 verse 6 ... Cached
But today, whether the problem is food for the poor, homes for the homeless, or medical care for the sick, our society endlessly calls upon government to redistribute resources contrary to the needs of the market and producers of prosperity. In fact, in government's rush to distribute welfare, there is a total disregard for the conditions required to produce the wealth. So as they rob resources to pay for these supposedly humanitarian concerns, the government "do-gooders" not only harm those who work and save for their own families, the government hurts all of society by violating the tenets of a moral, free nation; finally, it rubs salt in the wound by crippling the very system needed to produce more wealth.
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- President opts to use taxpayer fund to bailout wealthy investors
29 December 1997 Texas Straight Talk 29 December 1997 verse 2 ... Cached
President opts to use taxpayer fund to bailout wealthy investors
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- President opts to use taxpayer fund to bailout wealthy investors
29 December 1997 Texas Straight Talk 29 December 1997 verse 4 ... Cached
Using the old reliable excuse that it was in the interest of "national security," President Clinton last week opted to obligate the money of the American taxpayers to bailout the troubled South Korean economy and the legions of wealthy investors who had made a mistake in sinking their cash into a bad market.
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Block grants are not the answer
09 March 1998 Texas Straight Talk 09 March 1998 verse 7 ... Cached
Further, the block grant method of allocating funds does not eliminate the need to first collect the revenues nationally and politically distribute the funds to the various state entities. Collection and distribution which has nothing to do with the reality and everything to do with redistributing wealth to the benefit of politicians and special interests. Wealthy states, like Texas, will never get their money back, even if every program is block granted.
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US should stop meddling in foreign wars
16 March 1998 Texas Straight Talk 16 March 1998 verse 12 ... Cached
This is not a result of too little money by a misdirected role for our military, a role that contradicts the policy of neutrality, friendship, trade and nonintervention in the affairs of other nations. The question we should ask is: are we entitled to, wealthy enough, or even wise enough to assume the role of world policemen and protector of the world's natural resources?
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Asian economic crisis result of suppressed liberty
25 May 1998 Texas Straight Talk 25 May 1998 verse 5 ... Cached
Belief that an artificial boom, brought about by a "central bank" credit creation, can last forever is equivalent to finding the fountain of youth. Wealth cannot be created out of thin air, and new money and credit, although it can on the short-run give an illusion of wealth, is actually destructive to prosperity on the long-run.
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Deceptive economic euphoria
17 August 1998 Texas Straight Talk 17 August 1998 verse 5 ... Cached
It is true many Americans believe this nonsense and feel giddy about the prospects of sharing in a perpetual wealth machine. Of course, not much good can be expected to come from such accounting chicanery, but the debate is not all bad. Tax cuts are being considered as a way of "spending" some of the money coming in from - what else! - excessive tax revenues. But the myth prevails that allowing an individual to keep their earnings is recorded as a cost to government, and that is a concept which must be rejected.
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Taxpayer cash flowing again to non-citizens
31 August 1998 Texas Straight Talk 31 August 1998 verse 13 ... Cached
Why do politicians feel the need to send your tax dollars to non-citizens? First, almost by definition, non-citizens are ethnic minorities, thereby giving politicians the opportunity to show they 'care" about that particular ethnic group. Second, when the non-citizens reside here, it creates yet another dependent class for when they become citizens; if they get a government check from the moment they cross the border, it is likely they will continue to vote for those willing to provide ever more generous government checks. Third, for those outside the US, often wealthy individuals with ties to US corporations, it creates sources for campaign donations, or provides ways to ensure corporate donors here get lucrative deals overseas, reimbursing the industrialists' donations with tax money.
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Tax measure provides income averaging
12 October 1998 Texas Straight Talk 12 October 1998 verse 5 ... Cached
For people engaged in most other forms of commerce, a person's income and wealth can be measured based on a single year. Not so for agriculture.
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Tax measure provides income averaging
12 October 1998 Texas Straight Talk 12 October 1998 verse 6 ... Cached
Just as the actual processes of agriculture demands a long-term view, so too does understanding the income and wealth of those engaged in the business. The "really good" years cancel out the "really" bad, as the "good" do with the "bad," finally resulting in an average.
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Tax measure provides income averaging
12 October 1998 Texas Straight Talk 12 October 1998 verse 7 ... Cached
Those of us who have grown up in or been otherwise involved with agriculture, understand that income and wealth are viewed in the long-term, over a period of years, not simply on the basis of a single harvest. A good year only corrects the books for a bad year.
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Economic crisis looms
19 October 1998 Texas Straight Talk 19 October 1998 verse 10 ... Cached
If the problem was merely that there were not enough money, then money creation alone could make us all millionaires and no one would have to work. But increasing the money supply does not increase wealth. Only work and savings do that. The deception comes because, for a while for the lucky few, benefits are received when governments inflate the currency and pass it out for political reasons.
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Economic crisis looms
19 October 1998 Texas Straight Talk 19 October 1998 verse 11 ... Cached
But in time the free ride comes to an end. Even the beneficiaries suffer the inevitable consequences of a philosophy that teaches wealth comes from money creation and that central banks are acceptable central economic planners -- even in countries such as the United States where many pay lip service to free markets and free trade.
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Wrong debate in House 'leadership' race
16 November 1998 Texas Straight Talk 16 November 1998 verse 12 ... Cached
Both parties, unfortunately, endorse the use of government force to police the world, to redistribute wealth domestically and internationally, and to manipulate money and credit. Both allow government to invade our privacy as a trade-off for the government financing of education, medical care, and housing, arguing such invasion is necessary to run the system efficiently, and prevent waste and fraud. In the name of "public safety," neither party resists the federal government’s takeover of local law enforcement.
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Campaign reform misses target
12 July 1999 Texas Straight Talk 12 July 1999 verse 9 ... Cached
Politicians and bureaucrats will gain great influence over elections, while Americans will be forced to subsidize politicians with whose ideology the taxpayer may vehemently disagree. Clearly incumbents will greatly benefit by more controls over campaign spending, a benefit to which the reformers will never admit. Other winners will be the media, the wealthy and those with celebrity statues.
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Legalized theft
09 August 1999 Texas Straight Talk 09 August 1999 verse 6 ... Cached
Many people rightly criticize the growing welfare state as it relates to individuals getting handouts, assistance and other benefits from the government. But the more expensive, and rarely discussed, problem is when government provides handouts, assistance and lucrative benefits to wealthy, multinational corporations.
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Legalized theft
09 August 1999 Texas Straight Talk 09 August 1999 verse 9 ... Cached
But under our current system, that same businessman can make his move with the knowledge that the taxpayers of the United States will bail him out. This bailout comes from several different mechanisms, like the Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation. This absurdity that passes for policy is made all the more disgusting when one recognizes that working families, struggling to make ends meet, are being held liable for business decisions that the wealthiest of private investors would likely not cover.
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Confused priorities
04 October 1999 Texas Straight Talk 04 October 1999 verse 5 ... Cached
Of course, the first fallacy is in suggesting that a tax cut is cost. When someone criticizes a tax cut as "costing too much," they are revealing a basic belief in the tenets of socialism, where all wealth is created by, and belongs to, the government. A tax cut is allowing a productive individual to keep his own money; it does not cost anyone anything. In fact, the only "costs" in the tax system are the taxes levied on individuals.
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Floor Votes Reviewed
06 December 1999 Texas Straight Talk 06 December 1999 verse 8 ... Cached
My final amendment voted upon this year involved ending the further funding of agencies such as the Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, or "OPIC." These agencies take our hard earned tax dollars and send them, in the form of grants and subsidized loans, to companies doing business in other nations. This massive corporate welfare scheme is often portrayed as having some benefit to US citizens, but let's face it - only the very wealthy and very influential corporate and Wall Street interests truly benefit from such financial shenanigans.
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Greenspan Nominated to a Fourth Term
17 January 2000 Texas Straight Talk 17 January 2000 verse 9 ... Cached
Of course, any of us would "thrive" if we could increase our wealth at that rate with borrowing and counterfeiting - but for us it's illegal. For now, foreigners' willingness to soak up our inflated dollars, while selling us goods at discount, makes us feel wealthier. But that will eventually end with higher interest rates, a weak dollar and CPI type price inflation. When this takes place, any increase in Federal Reserve credit will only accelerate the painful correction.
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Repeal of Un-American "Death Tax" Passes House
12 June 2000 Texas Straight Talk 12 June 2000 verse 8 ... Cached
In a word, the death tax is simply un-American. People should not be punished for working hard their entire lives, creating jobs and wealth for others, and then trying to leave some of it so their children can have better lives. I applaud the members of the House who had the courage to cast the historic vote today to repeal the death tax. Now, I call on the members of the Senate and the President to support this legislation. The time has come to create a government that is supportive, not oppressive to the small business owner and the family farmer. If we put our faith in the American people, instead of the government, we will increase individual savings, promote job creation and, most importantly, support the family structure.
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The Conflict Between Collectivism and Liberty is Reflected in the Presidential Election
27 November 2000 Texas Straight Talk 27 November 2000 verse 4 ... Cached
To an extent, America is indeed politically divided. Most Americans accept one of two general political philosophies. Individualists value liberty above all, and hence believe in individual responsibility, capitalism, limited government, and the Constitution. Collectivists, on the other hand, value "equality" above all, and view government as a benign force charged with redistributing wealth and managing our lives. While these two conflicting outlooks certainly do not define the major political parties, they are adhered to by many members of those parties.
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The Conflict Between Collectivism and Liberty is Reflected in the Presidential Election
27 November 2000 Texas Straight Talk 27 November 2000 verse 7 ... Cached
The resulting division between American voters is the direct result of Washington's increasingly collectivist policies. Instead of moving toward a market economy and less dependency on the federal government in the midst of this so-called "prosperity,"each side in Washington continues to clamor for more of the taxpayer loot. The pretended goal of the economic planners has been economic fairness through redistribution of wealth. The real goal always has been an increasingly collectivist system which gives the federal government more and more power over our lives.
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Tax Cuts Benefit All Americans
19 February 2001 Texas Straight Talk 19 February 2001 verse 5 ... Cached
The factual rebuttals to the pro-tax argument seem to receive little play in the popular media. The class baiters are wrong when they claim our tax laws favor wealthy Americans. Nothing could be farther from the truth, as high-income taxpayers pay the vast majority of taxes collected in this country. In fact, Americans making over $100,000 annually represent only 6.6% of the population, yet they pay more than 55% of all income taxes! Americans making less than $50,000 annually, who make up 75% of the population, pay only 17% of all income taxes. These figures cannot be challenged by the pro-tax politicians, as they come directly from IRS reports. Our progressive tax rate structure insures that more affluent Americans pay a disproportionate amount of income taxes, yet politicians and the media continue to get way with insinuations that the sinister rich somehow don't pay their fair share.
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Tax Cuts Benefit All Americans
19 February 2001 Texas Straight Talk 19 February 2001 verse 6 ... Cached
Also, the class argument that average Americans do not benefit from tax cuts cannot be supported by facts. The Bush proposal, though far too modest in my view, is very straightforward. A key feature of the plan simplifies and lowers all marginal rates. Every taxpayer, regardless of income, will pay taxes at a lower rate than before under the plan. An American with a modest income might save $1,000 on his yearly tax bill, which could mean more to him than a million dollars would to a very wealthy taxpayer. This benefit is ignored in Washington and in the popular press. The focus, as always, is on overhyped disparities in wealth. The assumption is that government, rather than individual achievement in the marketplace, should determine who becomes wealthy.
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Tax Cuts Benefit All Americans
19 February 2001 Texas Straight Talk 19 February 2001 verse 7 ... Cached
With more Americans involved in the stock market, however, the politics of envy may fail to attract the average voter. Collectivist politicians forget that the American dream of becoming wealthy is alive and well. They seek to encourage resentment of the wealthy, when in truth most Americans admire successful people. They forget that upward mobility, the chance to start from humble beginnings and achieve wealth and position, is virtually impossible in high-tax socialist societies. Most of all, however, the pro-tax politicians forget that your money belongs to you. As a society, we should not forget their dishonesty when we go to the polls.
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"Campaign Finance Reform" Serves Entrenched Interests in Washington
09 April 2001 Texas Straight Talk 09 April 2001 verse 3 ... Cached
Last week the Senate narrowly passed the highly publicized McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill. I certainly understand that many Americans are tired of the corruption in Washington, where special interest lobbies pursue their agendas at the expense (literally) of the nation's taxpayers. Everyone knows that politicians use federal spending to reward lobbies, certain constituencies, and favored individuals. However, we must recognize that the McCain bill places restrictions only on individuals, not politicians. Politicians will continue to tax and spend, meaning they will continue to punish some productive Americans while rewarding others with federal largesse. The same vested special interests will not go away, and the same influence peddling will happen every day on Capitol Hill. The reason is very simple: when the federal government redistributes trillions of dollars from some Americans to others, countless special interests inevitably will fight for the money. The rise in corruption in Washington simply mirrors the rise in federal spending. The problem is not with campaigns, but rather with the steady shift from a relatively limited federal government to a virtually socialist system intent on huge redistributions of wealth.
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"Campaign Finance Reform" Serves Entrenched Interests in Washington
09 April 2001 Texas Straight Talk 09 April 2001 verse 5 ... Cached
Constitutional questions aside, the McCain bill simply will help entrenched powers retain their stranglehold on Washington. Incumbent politicians benefit when challengers cannot spend the amounts needed to unseat them. Name recognition and incumbency are huge advantages in politics. Because contributions by individuals are limited, a challenger must find hundreds or thousands of donors to support a campaign. The incumbent can rely on a much larger base of people. This presents a tremendous obstacle for virtually any challenger candidate who lacks name recognition and elite social contacts. As a result, ordinary Americans rarely bother to run for office. Perversely, very rich Americans are more likely to enter politics because of federal limits on individual donors. Their private wealth frees them from the hard work of raising $1,000 from thousands of individuals. When the challenger spends as much as the incumbent, re-election rates are much lower. So wealthy candidates match the incumbent's spending and often succeed in winning.
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"Campaign Finance Reform" Serves Entrenched Interests in Washington
09 April 2001 Texas Straight Talk 09 April 2001 verse 7 ... Cached
Grass roots organizations and third-party candidates especially suffer when contributions are limited. Such groups are prohibited from raising needed seed money from sympathetic wealthy donors interested in funding a new political movement. Millions of voters might be attracted to a third party, but they lose interest when their candidate garners very little publicity or is not on the ballot. It is virtually impossible for grass roots campaigns and new parties to match the established parties $1,000 at a time.
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The Bush Tax Cut
11 June 2001 Texas Straight Talk 11 June 2001 verse 5 ... Cached
Individual income tax rates will be reduced slightly over the next five years. The new rate structure eventually will be 10%, 15%, 25%, 28%, 33%, and 35%. These rate reductions are very important and should be much larger. Despite the dishonest rhetoric about the benefits of the tax bill going only to the rich, the truth is that high rates for the wealthiest taxpayers leave those individuals with less money to spend and invest. The tax surplus (the result of overtaxing) makes the current economic slowdown much worse, because billions of potential investment dollars are tied up in Treasury coffers. Marginal rate reductions are needed to spur investment and economic activity, but the new rates should have been made retroactive to immediately jump-start our nation's struggling businesses.
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Stimulus or Spending?
24 December 2001 Texas Straight Talk 24 December 2001 verse 4 ... Cached
It's important to cut through the rhetoric surrounding the stimulus debate over the last few weeks. The only real and lasting way to stimulate the economy is to reduce the amount of money government takes out of the private economy. The only way to do this is by cutting taxes. When taxes are reduced on individuals, they have more money to spend, save, or invest. When taxes are reduced on companies, they have more money to hire new employees, increase wages, or pay dividends to investors. Since all economic growth depends on private capital, the goal of any economic stimulus plan must be to leave more private capital in the hands of investors. When too much American wealth is tied up in government coffers, investment and job growth suffer. This is exactly what we have seen over the past 18 months- the Treasury "surplus" touted by the last administration actually represents a tax overcharge that dragged the economy down well before September 11th.
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UN Planting the Seeds for a Coming Global Tax
25 March 2002 Texas Straight Talk 25 March 2002 verse 4 ... Cached
The UN is meeting this week in Monterrey, Mexico to discuss exactly such a tax. The meeting is billed as a "Conference on Financing for Development," which is a nice way of saying it’s a conference to consider the best ways to shake down rich nations for money. UN bureaucrats think rich nations like America ought to give more money to poor nations- a lot more- simply because we’re rich. Never mind the billions of foreign aid tax dollars we send overseas every year; never mind the billions donated to overseas charities by Americans, the most charitable people on earth. The UN mindset blames the western world for poverty everywhere, assuming that our relative wealth must have come at the expense of the third world. The poor countries themselves are never deemed responsible for their own predicaments, despite their often corrupt governments, lack of property rights, and hostility toward wealth-producing capitalism. Somehow, it’s always our fault. So the UN holds conferences to talk about how we should pay to make things right, and the idea of a UN tax naturally arises.
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Are Your Taxes Too Low?
22 April 2002 Texas Straight Talk 22 April 2002 verse 7 ... Cached
No tax debate in Congress would be complete without some members pointing out the terrible fact that some Americans make more money than others. The tired class warfare argument, namely that the rich somehow don’t pay their fair share, remains endlessly popular on the Hill- even though it is demonstrably false. IRS statistics show that the top 1% of earners pay a whopping 36% of federal income taxes, while the top 5% pay 55%! In fact, earners in the top half account for 96% of income tax revenues, while the bottom half pays only 4%. Surely Marx would approve of this tremendously progressive tax system, yet the media and the left continue to perpetuate the myth that wealthy Americans use an unfair tax system to enrich themselves.
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Are Your Taxes Too Low?
22 April 2002 Texas Straight Talk 22 April 2002 verse 8 ... Cached
What the collectivists in Washington always seem to forget is that wealthy Americans are not a static group, but rather a dynamic one- because we still have class mobility in our relatively capitalist society. In other words, some taxpayers in the bottom 50% intend to move into the upper 50%, where they quickly will be thrust into higher tax brackets and deemed "rich" by the IRS. In fact, a family needs only an income of about $53,000 to find themselves in the top 25% of all taxpayers. These upwardly mobile Americans, whom Congress ought to be encouraging, presumably won’t be too excited about tax hikes for the rich when they find themselves labeled as such and footing the bill for a spendthrift Congress.
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Gold, Dollars, and Federal Reserve Mischief
10 June 2002 Texas Straight Talk 10 June 2002 verse 7 ... Cached
What does all of this mean for you and your family? Since your dollars have no intrinsic value, they are subject to currency market fluctuations and ruinous government policies, especially Fed inflationary policies. Every time new dollars are printed and the money supply increases, your income and savings are worth less. Even as you save for retirement, the Fed is working against you. Inflation is nothing more than government counterfeiting by the Fed printing presses. Inflation acts as a hidden tax levied disproportionately on the poor and fixed-income retirees, who find the buying power of their limited dollars steadily diminished. The corporations, bankers, and wealthy Americans suffer far less from this inflation, because they can take advantage of the credit expansion that immediately precedes each new round of currency devaluation.
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A Stay of Execution for the Death Tax
17 June 2002 Texas Straight Talk 17 June 2002 verse 7 ... Cached
Ultimately, the argument against the death tax is a moral one. People should not be punished for working hard, saving, and building wealth. Our society should respect the most basic property right, namely the right to dispose of one’s property as one wishes. The American dream is based on making a better life for one’s children, despite the empty rhetoric of the class-warfare politicians in Washington. Building wealth is not sinister, it is admirable. Our tax rules should encourage the decidedly American virtue of saving for the future.
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Our Incoherent Foreign Policy Fuels Middle East Turmoil
02 December 2002 Texas Straight Talk 02 December 2002 verse 6 ... Cached
A coherent foreign policy is based on the understanding that America is best served by not interfering in the deadly conflicts that define the Middle East. Yes, we need Middle Eastern oil, but we can reduce our need by exploring domestic sources. We should rid ourselves of the notion that we are at the mercy of the oil-producing countries- as the world’s largest oil consumer, their wealth depends on our business. We can and should remove our troops from the region quickly, before any more American lives are lost. We should stop the endless game of playing faction against faction, and recognize that buying allies doesn’t work. We should curtail the heavy militarization of the area by ending our disastrous foreign aid payments. We should stop propping up dictators and putting band-aids on festering problems. We should understand that our political and military involvement in the region creates far more problems that it solves. All Americans will benefit, both in terms of their safety and their pocketbooks, if we pursue a coherent, neutral foreign policy of non-interventionism, free trade, and self-determination in the Middle East.
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Tax Cuts and Class Wars
20 January 2003 Texas Straight Talk 20 January 2003 verse 2 ... Cached
President Bush unveiled a very modest tax cut plan last week that calls for the elimination of double taxation on dividends. Democrats immediately attacked the plan using class warfare tactics, clamoring that only the rich will benefit from a dividends tax reduction. This tired argument ignores the millions of middle class American investors who receive dividend checks and presumably don’t consider themselves wealthy. It also ignores the stimulative effect that any form of tax cut has on the economy. When dividends are taxed only once, as corporate income, investment is encouraged and shareholder demand for dividends increases. This in turn encourages companies to increase profits, because it’s hard to pay dividends if you’re not making any money. But these arguments require some analysis, and the left would rather appeal to base emotions and attempt to paint the wealthy as sinister tax dodgers.
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Tax Cuts and Class Wars
20 January 2003 Texas Straight Talk 20 January 2003 verse 4 ... Cached
Yet we have exactly the kind of steeply progressive tax system championed by Karl Marx. One might expect the left to be happy with such an arrangement. At its core, however, the collectivist left in this country simply doesn’t believe in tax cuts. Deep down, they believe all wealth belongs to the state, which should redistribute it via tax and welfare policies to achieve some mythical “social justice.” When people complain about having thirty to fifty percent of everything they earn devoured by taxes, the collectivists just shrug. They honestly believe it should be more, much more.
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Tax Cuts and Class Wars
20 January 2003 Texas Straight Talk 20 January 2003 verse 5 ... Cached
The class war tactic highlights what the left does best: divide Americans into groups. Collectivists see all issues of wealth and taxation as a zero-sum game played between competing groups. If one group gets a tax break, other groups must be rallied against it- even if such a cut would ultimately benefit them. Yet the class warriors forget that American wealth is not static, but rather very dynamic. Poor people become rich, and rich people lose all of their money. In fact, at no time in American history have more of the nation’s wealthy earned rather than inherited their money. Rich family dynasties are increasingly rare, and are quickly destroyed by unproductive spendthrift generations. So when the left attacks the rich, they’re attacking a fluid group that many poor Americans hope to join someday by moving up in life. Upward mobility is possible only in a free-market capitalist system, whereas collectivism dooms the poor to remain exactly where they are.
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Tax Cuts and Class Wars
20 January 2003 Texas Straight Talk 20 January 2003 verse 6 ... Cached
I’m in favor of cutting everybody’s taxes- rich, poor, and otherwise. Whether a tax cut reduces a single mother’s payroll taxes by forty dollars a month, or allows a wealthy business owner to save millions in capital gains, the net effect is beneficial. Both either spend, save, or invest the extra dollars, which helps all of us infinitely more than if those dollars were sent to the black hole known as the federal Treasury. The single mother desperately needs those extra dollars, and that’s why we should reduce or eliminate her payroll taxes. As for the wealthy business owner and whether he “needs” the extra dollars, I’ll simply relate the old adage of the man who said “I’ve never had my paycheck signed by a poor man.”
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Government Policy and False Prosperity
27 January 2003 Texas Straight Talk 27 January 2003 verse 4 ... Cached
My support for any tax cut is based on a longtime belief that our federal government is far too large, that it taxes and spends far too much. I always support tax cuts because I believe government should be returned to its proper constitutional limits. I do not support the idea of using tax policy for social engineering or supposed “stimulus,” where certain activities are encouraged and others discouraged. This is not proper in a free society, and it instills the terrible notion that government should run the economy. The great Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises understood that government could destroy wealth, but never create it. This is why government should not be in the business of manipulating stock prices- the benefits are always illusory, but the harms are very real.
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Government Policy and False Prosperity
27 January 2003 Texas Straight Talk 27 January 2003 verse 7 ... Cached
We need to rid ourselves of the fantasy that wealth can be created by artificially raising stock prices. The only stimulus our economy needs is sensible government policies. A sound money system, low taxes, and a low regulatory burden would foster an environment where real productivity and economic growth could flourish. Politicians need to learn from the failed Fed policies of the 1990s, and stop trying to fool the markets and the American people by promising prosperity through government policy.
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The Phony Tax Cut Debate
12 May 2003 Texas Straight Talk 12 May 2003 verse 5 ... Cached
Democrats argue that lowering taxes simply lowers revenues and increases deficits. They repeat the tired and false argument that only the vaguely defined “rich” benefit from tax cuts. They ignore that $500 in tax savings for a low-income family might mean more to them than $100,000 saved by a wealthy person. They only see a villainous “rich” person getting away with paying less than what they consider to be his “fair share.” They also don’t understand that a poor family may aspire to become wealthy or have wealthy children and grandchildren.
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Declining Dollar, Declining Fortunes
23 June 2003 Texas Straight Talk 23 June 2003 verse 5 ... Cached
Mr. Greenspan’s two greatest sins are easy to understand. First, he has wildly inflated the money supply by creating more than $5 trillion in new dollars since he became Fed chairman. Second, he has relentlessly cut interest rates below market levels. These actions make money too plentiful and too cheap. When dollars are abundant and the cost of borrowing is low, people and businesses spend money less carefully. The stock market bubble of the late 1990s is all the proof we need that Fed printing presses can create money, but not wealth.
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Declining Dollar, Declining Fortunes
23 June 2003 Texas Straight Talk 23 June 2003 verse 6 ... Cached
Because of Fed expansion of the money supply, the dollar has suffered a precipitous decline in the past year when measured against other world currencies. A Euro note worth only 89 cents shortly after its introduction is now worth about $1.16. Some consequences of this decline are obvious to the American public; a trip to Europe costs a lot more than it did a few years ago. But the long-term significance of this decline has not yet begun to sink in. Our relative wealth as a nation is measured in dollars, and the steady erosion of the value of those dollars means we will all be poorer in the future.
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The Tyranny of Paper Money
08 September 2003 Texas Straight Talk 08 September 2003 verse 5 ... Cached
Another explanation is that it’s human nature to seek the comforts of wealth with the least amount of effort. This desire is quite positive when it inspires efficient work and innovation in a capitalist society. Productivity is improved and the standard of living goes up for everyone. But this human trait of seeking wealth and comfort with the least amount of effort is often abused. It leads some to believe that by certain monetary manipulations, wealth can be increased out of thin air.
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"Campaign Finance Reform" Muzzles Political Dissent
22 December 2003 Texas Straight Talk 22 December 2003 verse 7 ... Cached
Wealthy people will always seek to influence politicians, because government unfortunately plays a very big role in determining who gets (and stays) rich in our country. Our federal government has become a taxing, spending, and regulating leviathan that virtually controls the economy. Having rejected the notion of limited, constitutional government, we can hardly be surprised when special interests use corrupting campaign money to influence the process! We need to get money out of government; only then will money not be important in politics. Big government and big campaign money go hand-in-hand.
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Greenspan's Black Magic
23 February 2004 Texas Straight Talk 23 February 2004 verse 2 ... Cached
In testimony before the House Financial Services Committee last week, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan painted a rosy picture of the U.S. economy. In his eyes, the Fed’s aggressive expansion of the money supply and suppression of interest rates have strengthened the financial condition of American households and industries. If this is true, however, our nation’s "prosperity" is merely a temporary illusion based on smoke and mirrors. True wealth cannot be created simply by printing money; families and businesses cannot prosper by getting deeper in debt.
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LOST at Sea
05 April 2004 Texas Straight Talk 05 April 2004 verse 2 ... Cached
Back in the 1970s the United Nations launched its plan for a global program of taxation without representation, called the “New International Economic Order.” The goal of this new economic order was not so new at all, however. It sought the involuntary transfer of wealth and technology from the developed world to the third world under the direction of the United Nations. A cornerstone of this dangerous attempt to loot the prosperous nations was the “Law of the Sea Treaty” (LOST).
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The Federal Reserve Debt Engine
26 April 2004 Texas Straight Talk 26 April 2004 verse 4 ... Cached
Judging by Mr. Greenspan’s statements to a Senate committee in February, Fed economists are confusing debt with wealth. Mr. Greenspan praises the “sustained expansion of the US economy,” but then goes on to highlight the real reason for the expansion: loose monetary policy and near-zero interest rates. Since Fed bankers set interest rates artificially low, the cost of borrowing money is very cheap. This leads to more and more consumer spending, which Mr. Greenspan touts as the driving force for economic growth.
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The Federal Reserve Debt Engine
26 April 2004 Texas Straight Talk 26 April 2004 verse 5 ... Cached
In fact, he expressly cites the benefits of increased household spending made possible by mortgage refinancing. But new debt is not wealth, and it’s impossible to borrow one’s way into prosperity. Mortgage debt increased 13% last year, while consumer credit debt also increased. American households unquestionably have more debt and save less than ever before. Yet we are expected to believe that more spending and more debt are the keys to economic prosperity.
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The Great Foreign Aid Swindle
24 May 2004 Texas Straight Talk 24 May 2004 verse 8 ... Cached
The wisest approach to international economic development is for the United States to lead by example, by revitalizing the economic policies that led us to become wealthy in the first place. This means less government, less taxation, and no foreign meddling. The greatest gift we can send overseas is a demonstration of the freedom and prosperity possible only with limited government and the rule of law.
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Superpower or Superdebtor?
07 June 2004 Texas Straight Talk 07 June 2004 verse 6 ... Cached
It is not too late to change course. The United States can again be viewed as the shining city on the hill and an example to other nations by re-embracing the kind of foreign and economic policies that made us wealthy and admired across the globe in the first place. This means less government, less taxation, and no foreign meddling. Regaining our economic security will go much further toward guaranteeing our national security in the future.
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The IMF Con
27 September 2004 Texas Straight Talk 27 September 2004 verse 9 ... Cached
The IMF and other complex schemes only serve to obscure the real issue: Why should US taxpayers be forced to send money abroad? Certainly the Constitution provides no authority for foreign aid. In historical and practical terms, redistribution of wealth from rich to poor nations has done little or nothing to alleviate suffering abroad. Only free markets, property rights, and the rule of law can create the conditions necessary to lift poor nations out of poverty.
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TSA- Bullies at the Airport
29 November 2004 Texas Straight Talk 29 November 2004 verse 8 ... Cached
Airlines should be using every last ounce of their lobbying and public relations power to stop TSA from harassing, delaying, humiliating, and otherwise mistreating their paying passengers. They should be protecting their employees, passengers, and aircraft using private security and guns in the cockpit. After all, who has more incentive to create safe skies than the airlines themselves? Many security-intensive industries, including nuclear power plants, oil refineries, and armored money transports, employ private security forces with excellent results. Yet the airlines prefer to relinquish all responsibility for security to the government, so they cannot be held accountable if another disaster occurs. But airlines are finding out the hard way that millions of Americans simply won't put up with TSA's abuse. Wealthy Americans are using private planes via increasingly popular fractional ownership plans, while ordinary Americans are choosing to drive to their destinations and vacation closer to home. Even business travelers are finding ways to consolidate trips and teleconference. Who can blame anyone for avoiding airports altogether?
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Gold Exposes the Dollar
06 December 2004 Texas Straight Talk 06 December 2004 verse 9 ... Cached
The consequences of a rapidly declining dollar are not yet obvious to the American public. A trip to Europe costs more than it did a few years ago, but most Americans still don’t sense they are becoming poorer as the dollar falls. The long-term significance has not yet begun to sink in. However, our relative wealth as a nation is measured in dollars, and the steady erosion of the value of those dollars means we will all be poorer in the future. Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan has relentlessly increased the money supply throughout his tenure, ostensibly to keep the economy expanding. But this artificial stimulation through cheap money comes with a price. When dollars are abundant, they are worth less. This is the reality facing Americans today, especially older Americans who rely on savings to finance their retirement years.
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Another UN Insult
03 January 2005 Texas Straight Talk 03 January 2005 verse 4 ... Cached
You may have heard one United Nations official comment that America is being stingy with its offer of millions of dollars in aid for tsunami victims. His attitude toward your money is typical of globalist bureaucrats, who ultimately view the UN as a means for transferring wealth from America to other nations. Americans are very generous people, and undoubtedly will donate tens or even hundreds of millions to private organizations to help the victims of this terribly tragedy in Asia. We hardly need the UN to chide us about our supposed lack of generosity.
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The Maestro Changes his Tune
21 February 2005 Texas Straight Talk 21 February 2005 verse 3 ... Cached
Nearly 40 years ago, Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan wrote persuasively in favor of a gold monetary standard in an essay entitled Gold and Economic Freedom. In that essay he neatly summarized the fundamental problem with fiat currency in a few short sentences: “The abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for the welfare statists to use the banking system as a means to an unlimited expansion of credit… In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value… Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the ‘hidden’ confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists’ antagonism toward the gold standard.”
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Where is Your Money Going?
21 March 2005 Texas Straight Talk 21 March 2005 verse 10 ... Cached
-$76 million to build a new airport in Kuwait, one of the wealthiest countries on earth;
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Does the WTO Serve Our Interests?
16 May 2005 Texas Straight Talk 16 May 2005 verse 4 ... Cached
The World Trade Organization by its own admission is not just about trade. According to the WTO website, liberalizing trade actually takes a back seat to its more activist ambitions, such as “development”-- a euphemism for wealth-transfers from rich nations to poor nations. Likewise, their own website promises that, “In the WTO, commercial interests do not take priority over environmental protection.” In 1994 the WTO created the Trade and Environment Committee to bring “environmental and sustainable development issues into the mainstream of WTO work.” What does this mean? It would not take much imagination to tie any environmental issue to trade and thus invite WTO meddling.
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Congress and the Federal Reserve Erode Your Dollars
23 May 2005 Texas Straight Talk 23 May 2005 verse 7 ... Cached
Unlike wealthy currency traders, most Americans are stuck with their U.S. dollars. Average people, particularly those who depend on savings or fixed incomes to fund their retirement years, cannot abide the continued devaluation of our currency. A true strong-dollar policy would not depend on the actions of China or any other nation. It would, however, require a constriction of the money supply and higher interest rates, both of which would cause some short-term pain for the American economy. In the long run, however, such a correction is the only alternative to the continued erosion of our dollars.
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What Should America do for Africa?
11 July 2005 Texas Straight Talk 11 July 2005 verse 3 ... Cached
At the G8 summit in Scotland last week, we heard once again how the wealthy nations of the world have not done enough to raise Africa out of poverty. At the Live 8 music festival that preceded it, we heard angry demands for “Justice, Not Charity” in Africa. Implicit in such demands is the collectivist fallacy that wealth is a zero sum game, and therefore western prosperity is possible only at the expense of African misery. As usual, Americans and other western nations are portrayed as villains who somehow conspire to keep Africa poor.
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Will the Estate Tax ever be Repealed?
24 October 2005 Texas Straight Talk 24 October 2005 verse 7 ... Cached
Ultimately, the argument against the death tax is a moral one. People should not be punished for working hard, saving, and building wealth. Our society should respect the most basic property right, namely the right to dispose of one’s property as one chooses. The American dream is based on making a better life for one’s children, despite the empty rhetoric of the class-warfare politicians in Washington. Building wealth is not sinister, it is admirable. Our tax rules should encourage the decidedly American virtue of saving for the future.
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More of the Same at the Federal Reserve
28 November 2005 Texas Straight Talk 28 November 2005 verse 5 ... Cached
What I mean is that Mr. Bernanke appears to have embraced the idea that the Federal Reserve can create prosperity more than Mr. Greenspan ever did. Like his predecessor, Mr. Bernanke views our system of fiat currency as a tool for creating wealth out of thin air by producing more dollars, whether paper or electronic. But he seems to take things further than Greenspan by refusing even to consider the destructive consequences of monetary expansion. In fact, he earned dubious notoriety for this quote in a 2002 speech discussing the supposed threat of deflation in the American economy: "The U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press, that allows it to produce as many dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost."
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New Rules, Same Game
23 January 2006 Texas Straight Talk 23 January 2006 verse 6 ... Cached
I don’t believe the problem is corrupt lobbyists or even corrupt politicians per se. The fundamental problem, in my view, is the very culture of Washington. Our political system has become nothing more than a means of distributing government largesse, through tax dollars confiscated from the American people-- always in the name democracy. The federal budget is so enormous that it loses all meaning. What’s another million or so for some pet project, in an annual budget of $2.4 trillion? No one questions the principle that a majority electorate should be allowed to rule the country, dictate rights, and redistribute wealth.
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New Rules, Same Game
23 January 2006 Texas Straight Talk 23 January 2006 verse 8 ... Cached
The dependency on government generated by welfarism and warfarism, made possible by our shift from a republican to a democratic system of government, is the real scandal of the ages. If we merely tinker with current attitudes about the role of the federal government in our lives, it won’t do much to solve the ethics crisis. True reform is impossible without addressing the immorality of wealth redistribution.
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The Real Washington Scandal
06 February 2006 Texas Straight Talk 06 February 2006 verse 6 ... Cached
The simplest way for the Fed to overcome these fears and maintain worldwide enthusiasm for the dollar is to raise interest rates and stop putting new dollars into circulation. But the Greenspan "boom" was based on the opposite approach. By cutting interest rates to the bone and vastly increasing the money supply, Greenspan made Americans feel rich-- first with the stock market bubble of the 1990s, and later with the housing bubble that is only now starting to burst. Greenspan was brilliant at making debt feel like wealth, but Mr. Bernanke inherits a very difficult situation. To maintain the value of the dollar, he must put the brakes on the money supply and raise the cost of borrowing. Such tough action is unlikely, however, given Mr. Bernanke's troubling public statements about the benefits of government printing presses.
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International Taxes?
06 March 2006 Texas Straight Talk 06 March 2006 verse 5 ... Cached
The United Nations remains determined to rob from wealthy countries and, after taking a big cut for itself, send what’s left to the poor countries. Of course, most of this money will go to the very dictators whose reckless policies have impoverished their citizens. According to the international bureaucrats of the UN, wherever poverty exists in the rest of the world it is always our fault. According to them, our prosperity comes not from hard work, legal protection of property rights, and our capitalist system, but rather because we exploit the poor of the third world. Somehow, it’s always our fault.
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The Declining Dollar Erodes Personal Savings
15 May 2006 Texas Straight Talk 15 May 2006 verse 9 ... Cached
The consequences of a rapidly declining dollar are not yet fully understood by the American public. The long-term significance has not sunk in, but when it does there will be political hell to pay in Washington. Our relative wealth as a nation is measured in dollars, and the steady erosion of the value of those dollars means we will all be poorer in the future. The artificial stimulation of our economy through cheap money comes with a price. When dollars are abundant, they are worth less. This is the reality facing Americans today, especially older Americans who rely on savings to finance their retirement years.
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The Annual Foreign Aid Rip-Off
05 June 2006 Texas Straight Talk 05 June 2006 verse 5 ... Cached
This year’s bill is even worse than last year’s bill. Aside from the almost 600 million dollar increase, the bill will spend half a billion dollars on something called the “Trade Capacity Enhancement Fund.” This is nothing but an enormous fund to bribe foreign governments to “liberalize” their trade policies. As one of the strongest proponents of free trade in Congress, I know well that open and free trade is its own reward. Countries that trade freely with each other are wealthier and far less likely to go to war. We shouldn’t kid ourselves: this new program is not about free trade. Its purpose is to encourage countries to enter into new so-called trade agreements with the US government. Government to government trade agreements produce government-managed trade relationships, which are not free trade at all. This fund is a colossal waste of money that will result in less free trade worldwide.
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Why Won't Congress Abolish the Estate Tax?
12 June 2006 Texas Straight Talk 12 June 2006 verse 4 ... Cached
Fortunately, estate taxes no longer devour 60% of some individuals’ wealth when they die. Congress passed legislation in 2001 that reduced estate tax rates and increased the amount of assets exempt from the tax. Yet Congress has been unable to abolish the estate tax altogether, and due to a political compromise the old rates will be back in effect come 2011 unless Congress acts first.
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Why Won't Congress Abolish the Estate Tax?
12 June 2006 Texas Straight Talk 12 June 2006 verse 10 ... Cached
Again, the issue is control. People who have worked hard to build wealth simply cannot stand to see government take a big chunk of their assets when they die, so they do anything they can--even economically harmful things—to prevent it. This is what supporters of the estate tax cannot seem to understand.
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Why Won't Congress Abolish the Estate Tax?
12 June 2006 Texas Straight Talk 12 June 2006 verse 16 ... Cached
Forth, it contradicts a central premise of American life, namely, building wealth and “getting ahead.”
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Congress Rejects UN Taxes
19 June 2006 Texas Straight Talk 19 June 2006 verse 4 ... Cached
UN bureaucrats think rich nations like America ought to give more money to poor nations- a lot more- simply because we’re rich. Never mind the billions of foreign aid tax dollars we send overseas every year; never mind the billions donated to overseas charities by Americans, the most charitable people on earth. The UN mindset blames the western world for poverty everywhere, assuming that our relative wealth must have come at the expense of the third world. The poor countries themselves are never deemed responsible for their own predicaments, despite their often corrupt governments, lack of property rights, and hostility toward wealth-producing capitalism. Somehow, it’s always our fault. So the UN holds conferences to talk about how we should pay to make things right, and the idea of a UN tax naturally arises.
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Rethinking Birthright Citizenship
02 October 2006 Texas Straight Talk 02 October 2006 verse 6 ... Cached
No other wealthy, western nations grant automatic citizenship to those who simply happen to be born within their borders to non-citizens. These nations recognize that citizenship involves more than the physical location of one’s birth; it also involves some measure of cultural connection and allegiance. In most cases this means the parents must be citizens of a nation in order for their newborn children to receive automatic citizenship.
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Taxes, Spending, and Debt are the Real Issues
16 October 2006 Texas Straight Talk 16 October 2006 verse 4 ... Cached
Lower taxes benefit all Americans by increasing economic growth and encouraging wealth creation. I’m in favor of cutting everybody’s taxes – rich, poor, and otherwise. Whether a tax cut reduces a single mother’s payroll taxes by forty dollars a month, or allows a business owner to save thousands in capital gains and hire more employees, the net effect is beneficial. Both either spend, save, or invest the extra dollars, which helps all of us more than if those dollars were sent to the black hole known as the federal Treasury.
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Political Power and the Rule of Law
05 February 2007 Texas Straight Talk 05 February 2007 verse 8 ... Cached
Political power is not like the power possessed by those who otherwise obtain fame and fortune. After all, even the wealthiest individual cannot force anyone to buy a particular good or service; even the most famous celebrities cannot force anyone to pay attention to them. It is only when elites become politically connected that they begin to impose their views on all of us.
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Hypocrisy in the Middle East
26 February 2007 Texas Straight Talk 26 February 2007 verse 8 ... Cached
A coherent foreign policy is based on the understanding that America is best served by not interfering in the deadly conflicts that define the Middle East. Yes, we need Middle Eastern oil, but we can reduce our need by exploring domestic sources. We should rid ourselves of the notion that we are at the mercy of the oil-producing countries- as the world’s largest oil consumer, their wealth depends on our business. We should stop the endless game of playing faction against faction, and recognize that buying allies doesn’t work. We should curtail the heavy militarization of the area by ending our disastrous foreign aid payments. We should stop propping up dictators and putting band-aids on festering problems. We should understand that our political and military involvement in the region creates far more problems that it solves. All Americans will benefit, both in terms of their safety and their pocketbooks, if we pursue a coherent, neutral foreign policy of non-interventionism, free trade, and self-determination in the Middle East.
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The Money Has to Come From Somewhere
23 September 2007 Texas Straight Talk 23 September 2007 verse 2 ... Cached
After the current turmoil in the markets, I was hoping that new Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke would see the big picture and act judiciously. Instead he signaled, with an aggressive rate cut, that we can expect a continuation of the monetary policies that got us here to begin with. Alan Greenspan released his memoir this week explaining his policies and decisions in the wake of the irrational exuberance they fueled. His successor should see that it is now time for a change of policy that addresses the root of our troubles. But instead of seeing an inflation problem, the Federal Reserve sees a liquidity problem, which is a little like extinguishing a forest fire with gasoline. In the wake of the rate cut, the Dow jumped and brokers cheered. Behind the headlines, however, the dollar quietly fell and was abandoned by more of the world in favor of more solid stores of wealth.
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The Money Has to Come From Somewhere
23 September 2007 Texas Straight Talk 23 September 2007 verse 7 ... Cached
The reality is that this type of manipulation of the markets masks where resources, or money, ultimately comes from. It comes from the taxpayer. The government doesn’t create Gross Domestic Product, they just limit and control how it is done. They then absorb much of the value produced in the economy through taxation and inflation, so they can squander our nation’s wealth with runaway spending.
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Taxing Ourselves to Death
14 October 2007 Texas Straight Talk 14 October 2007 verse 8 ... Cached
It is troubling to me that this country is chasing away wealth, while entitlements recklessly grow. The power to tax is the power to destroy, and we are making strides towards destroying prosperity but expanding the welfare state. This is a dangerous and untenable trend.
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Tax Reform Promises Treats, Delivers Tricks
04 November 2007 Texas Straight Talk 04 November 2007 verse 3 ... Cached
The Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) began in the late 1960's because 155 wealthy taxpayers had become savvy enough with loopholes that they managed to avoid income taxes altogether. Very few Americans avoided taxes completely this way, nonetheless, policy was enacted that now threatens 25 million Americans.
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Economic Stimulus Concerns
27 January 2008 Texas Straight Talk 27 January 2008 verse 4 ... Cached
Countries build wealth through robust economic environments, in which jobs are created and businesses can operate at a profit and grow. When taxes bleed away profits and burdensome regulation hamstrings operations, our businesses and our jobs go overseas. The United States must foster a competitive business environment once again.
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Paving Paradise
03 February 2008 Texas Straight Talk 03 February 2008 verse 3 ... Cached
Taking land is destructive enough. But the perpetual threat of taking an undetermined amount of land is hanging over the heads of millions of Texans and putting their lives at a standstill. Land is a store of wealth and a source of stability. This highway project is tragically threatening that for so many Texans.
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On Money, Inflation and Government
30 March 2008 Texas Straight Talk 30 March 2008 verse 3 ... Cached
First, money is not wealth, in and of itself. You cannot create more wealth simply by creating more money. Wall Street bankers cry out for more liquidity, but what is really needed is more value behind the dollar. But the value, unfortunately, isn't there.
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Sowing More Big Government with the Farm Bill
01 June 2008 Texas Straight Talk 01 June 2008 verse 2 ... Cached
Recently Congress sent the latest Farm Bill to the president. The bill features brand new federal programs, expansion of existing subsidies, more food stamps and more foreign food aid. This bill hits the taxpayer hard, while at the same time ensuring food prices will remain elevated. The president vetoed the bill, citing concerns over its costs and subsidies for the wealthy in a time of high food prices and record farm income. Nevertheless, this over-reaching, government-expanding Farm Bill will soon be law.
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Iraq or the Economy?
16 June 2008 Texas Straight Talk 16 June 2008 verse 4 ... Cached
War takes what would otherwise be productive economic capacity and transfers both that capacity, and the wealth it would generate in normal, peaceful, times into far less economically viable activities. It also impacts budget priorities in ways that are detrimental to our nation. I have often pointed to the fact that we are building bridges in Iraq while they are collapsing in the United States .
Texas Straight Talk from 20 December 1996 to 23 June 2008 (573 editions) are included in this Concordance. Texas Straight Talk after 23 June 2008 is in blog form on Rep. Paul’s Congressional website and is not included in this Concordance.
Remember, not everything in the concordance is Ron Paul’s words. Some things he quoted, and he added some newspaper and magazine articles to the Congressional Record. Check the original speech to see.