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2009 Ron Paul Chapter 41

Ron Paul Quotes.com: Federal Reserve Monetizes Debt

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Federal Reserve Monetizes Debt
Not linked on Ron Paul’s Congressional Website. Mr. BRADY of Texas. Madam Chairman, I would yield 5 minutes to a member of the Joint Economic Committee for more than 6 years, the gentleman from Texas, Mr. RON PAUL.

2009 Ron Paul 41:1
Mr. PAUL. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

2009 Ron Paul 41:2
Madam Chairman, I rise in opposition to this resolution.

2009 Ron Paul 41:3
You know, they say so often that there is not enough bipartisanship around here. We hear that complaint a lot of time. But, you know, when I look at it, I see that there’s been too much bipartisanship in creating the problem we have had. And it hasn’t been the last – this crisis that we’re in the midst of, this financial crisis, didn’t pop up here in the last 60 days. It didn’t pop up here in the last 8 years, but it’s taken several decades to get to this point where we are today dealing with a budget that is just totally out of control and a monetary and economic system that is uncontrollable as well.

2009 Ron Paul 41:4
It is said that this budget is going to be $3.6 trillion with a $1.1 trillion deficit. An amazing thing is that $1.1 trillion deficit is going to be $400 billion less than this year. I will wait and see if that really comes out because that probably won’t work out that way. Matter of fact, characteristically, the statistics that we hear when we talk about the budget are never reliable, especially when you’re in a recession. In a recession, nobody can protect the revenues. The revenues are going to be a lot lower than they said and the expenditures are going to be a lot higher.

2009 Ron Paul 41:5
So I am making a prediction that the spending will be over $4 trillion this year and that the deficit is going to be over $2 trillion and that the picture that we are looking at today is much worse than we’re willing to admit.

2009 Ron Paul 41:6
Matter of fact, I think the problem we face today is not so much a budgetary problem. It’s much different. I think we talk a lot about the budget. Just think about how many hours we talked about it today. But the budget and the deficit is a symptom of something much more serious. And that is, what have we allowed our government to become? I think it has been the loss of respect by us here in the Congress to understand and take seriously article I, section A. If we did that, we wouldn’t be doing all of these things that we’re doing.

2009 Ron Paul 41:7
If we understood the tenth amendment, we wouldn’t be doing all of this. We wouldn’t have a deficit. If we understood monetary policy, we wouldn’t have a monetary system that encourages all of this that gets us off the hook because conservatives like to spend a lot of money, and liberals like to spend a lot of money. And they don’t have to worry. We raise taxes. We borrow it. And we do it, and we’ve been doing it for decades and getting away with it. But it’s coming to an end because we’ve always been dependent on the Fed to come in and monetize the debt.

2009 Ron Paul 41:8
Now, have they backed off in any way? No. They are expanding it. Not only do they buy in the market, they are buying it directly from the Treasury. They’re only encouraging us to do even more of this.

2009 Ron Paul 41:9
We have endorsed, as a Congress and as a people, a welfare/warfare State. And that is not part of what America is supposed to be. And it encourages the spending and the borrowing and the deficits and all of the inflation.

2009 Ron Paul 41:10
And we take – for instance, we were supposed to get a lot of change with the new administration. One thing I was hopeful about is that they might look at this overseas wild expanding and expansion of the war going on in the Middle East, but the military budget, the war budget, is going up 9 percent. And as long as we have the expansion of the war, the dependency on the spending overseas, we’re spending over $1 trillion over a year maintaining the world empire at the same time we have runaway spending here on welfare here at home. It is unsustainable.

2009 Ron Paul 41:11
We have a debt that will not be paid. We know that when it reaches a certain level, it cannot be paid. But it is always liquidated.

2009 Ron Paul 41:12
Now, if an individual or a company goes into debt, it can be liquidated in the old-fashioned way of bankruptcies. Countries don’t go bankrupt. What they do is they default on a debt. That doesn’t mean they won’t pay it. They pay it off in bad money. And literally, that is the purpose of the Federal Reserve right now is to lower the real debt. So if you destroy 50 percent of the value of the dollar in the next year or two, the real debt has gone down 50 percent.

2009 Ron Paul 41:13
Literally, the Federal Reserve board is praying for, encouraging inflation to lower the real debt because it can’t be sustained.

2009 Ron Paul 41:14
But who does that hurt? It hurts the people who save, the people who save get 1 percent on their earnings, and we tax the little bit they get, and the people who are doing the right thing are being punished the most.

2009 Ron Paul 41:15
So the ones who live beyond their means get bailed out. And it’s a very bad, bad system that we have. And we have to decide what the role of government ought to be.

2009 Ron Paul 41:16
You know, we do blame the banks and we blame the business people and everybody. But you know, I have a lot of people that come to my office and say, Cut his, cut his, but don’t cut my program.

2009 Ron Paul 41:17
So we have to decide as a people what should the role of government be. And if we think the role of government is going to be, and should be, the policeman of the world and to run the welfare State, this budgetary problem will never be solved.

2009 Ron Paul 41:18
The Acting CHAIR. The time of the gentleman has expired. Mr. BRADY of Texas. Madam Chairman, I would like to grant 30 seconds to Mr. PAUL to conclude.

2009 Ron Paul 41:19
Mr. PAUL. I thank you for yielding.

2009 Ron Paul 41:20
And let me just close by saying the greatest danger I see right now is the placing of the blame for the crisis that we’re in is that we had too much freedom, too much capitalism, not enough regulation. And they did this in the 1930s. They are doing it even more now.

2009 Ron Paul 41:21
Instead of saying that we overspent, overtaxed, overregulated, we have lost our confidence. And if we don’t change that attitude and if we accept this notion, accept international regulation, believe me, we’re in big trouble. We will lose our freedom, and we will lose our sovereignty as well.


2009 Ron Paul 41:22


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