Ron Paul Quotes.com 2004 Ron Paul Chapter 59 Ron Paul Quotes.com: Millennium Challenge Account — Part 2 15 July 2004 Home Page   Contents Congressional Record (Page H5856)   Cached Not linked on Ron Paul’s Congressional website.

Millennium Challenge Account — Part 2 15 July 2004 2004 Ron Paul 59:1 Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. 2004 Ron Paul 59:2 Let me follow up on the point I made earlier about the good intentions of a program like this to promote free market changes in certain countries, but, unfortunately, this backfires because once the money gets in the hands of the government we then require them to develop partnerships or alliances with businesses, which is exactly the opposite of free markets. This is closer to crony capitalism or fascism when we combine government money with business interests. 2004 Ron Paul 59:3 At the same time, we know that our corporations will also participate in these programs. So the money once again leaves the people of this country, many times the poor, and goes to these foreign aid programs which subsidize certain governments, solidifying powers of certain politicians, which then allows fungibility of their other funds to do other things and then encourage business partnerships between government and business which is not free markets, which literally is undermining the move that I think is intended and that is to improve the conditions of other countries. 2004 Ron Paul 59:4 If the conditions of a country are amenable to capitalism and investment, there is never a problem of a lack of investors. The fact that we have to do this, that means there are flaws in the system. This will not improve it. It actually makes it worse. Just because you have partnership with businesses does not mean you are moving toward free enterprise. That means you are moving toward a system of interventionism, or crony capitalism. It is not true reform. 2004 Ron Paul 59:5 So a program like this actually does the reverse. It has unintended consequences. It makes our problems worse. And, besides, we do not have the right to do it. We do not have the constitutional authority to do it, and we certainly do not have a moral authority to undermine the poor people of this country by making the conditions worse here. 2004 Ron Paul 59:6 For this reason, I strongly urge my colleagues to vote “yes” on this amendment. 2004 Ron Paul 59:7 Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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