I firmly believe the American people are serious about cutting spending and fixing our debt crisis now. Those struggling to make ends meet and provide for their families while also trying to save for the future know we must change course immediately.
I’m not running for president merely to trim a little here and there from our bloated federal budget. Instead, I have offered the boldest, most specific and most comprehensive solutions in the history of American politics to restore our economy and once again make America the most innovative, competitive and prosperous nation in the world.
We face no problem that cannot be solved by reaffirming our trust in the fundamental principles of freedom, limited constitutional government and individual responsibility.
As a candidate, I pledge that not only will my first 100 days as president be dedicated to reinstituting these core values from the moment I take my oath but that my entire time in office will be devoted to protecting our liberties and removing the burden of an out-of-control government from the people’s backs.
This is a rush transcript. If you notice any errors please report them using the “Help improve this post” link at the bottom of this post.
Megyn Kelly: Big news from America’s election headquarters, as New Hampshire sets the date for America’s first primary. It all goes down on January 10th, and here’s why that matters; since 1952, only 3 candidates have lost that primary and then gone on to win the presidency. For 40 years, not one person won the election who had not won New Hampshire. Interestingly, those three candidates that lost the granite state primary but wound up winning the White House, are the last 3 U.S. presidents. We’ve also got some new polls just out from the campaign trail, where we are now about 60days from the first in the nation caucuses; that happens in Iowan. Herman Cain and Mitt Romney may be number 1 and 2 respectively, but don’t forget Ron Paul, the Texas Congressman pulling third place in the latest Des Moines Register poll of likely caucus goers. Those are always the polls you want to pay attention to, of likely caucus goers or likely voters. Following a first place finish this weekend in the Hawkeye State straw poll, the Republican presidential contender joins us now.
Sir, thank you so much for being back on the being, all the best.
Ron Paul: Thank you, it’s good to be with you.
Megyn Kelly: So you must be feeling pretty good. In Iowa you won first place in the straw poll and then you come in third in the Des Moines Register poll at 12% of the vote, not to mention the latest Rasmussen Reports Poll put you in third in New Hampshire as well at 11%. What is the path the victory for you, sir?
Ron Paul: To continue to do what we’re doing, and make sure that our people get to the polls. And I think that’s where we excel, the organization in getting our people out, so I think we’re in a good position, but we still have ways to go and we have a couple months. So we will continue to do exactly what we’ve been doing and spend some of the money that my supporters have sent.
This is a rush transcript. If you notice any errors please report them using the “Help improve this post” link at the bottom of this post.
Larry Kudlow: This is story No. 1, Ben Bernanke and the Fed’s ominous warning: growth will be much slower than expected, unemployment will be at 8.6% a year from now, and the Fed stands ready to buy mortgage backed bonds; more quantitative easing. How do we solve all this? Well, Congressman Ron Paul is our special guest tonight. We welcome back to the show Texas Congressman Ron Paul, who is obviously a Republican Presidential candidate as well. He is also an expert on Federal Reserve policy who is following Ben Bernanke’s news conference today. Congressman Paul, welcome back to the program. I just want to get your take and pick your mind on a couple of Bernanke’s key statements. Probably the most provocative thing was that he argued to help housing and to solve the high unemployment. The Fed stands ready to buy mortgage-backed bonds, which would mean more Quantitative Easing. What’s your thought on more QE and buying bonds?
Ron Paul: By the way, I think we’re still in QE because he’s guaranteed that interest rates are going to stay at about 0% for the next couple of years. But to buy more just exasperates our problem, we’re just transferring debt from one group to another group; basically from those who held this mortgages to the taxpayer. And I see no benefit from this whatsoever, I think we don’t get the correction that we need. We need some of that debt liquidated, we need some of that mal-investment taken care of, we need prices to go down. So he’s doing, from my viewpoint, exactly the opposite of what he should be doing.
Larry Kudlow: Well, that’s interesting, because some of the reporters asked him, given his relatively gloomy assessment of the economy – I mean, unemployment is expected to be near 9% even a year from now – “What went wrong?” We’ve had all these Fed activism as you point out, 0% interest rates, QE1, QE2, and Bernanke basically said, “Bad luck”, he basically said, “Bad luck” was the problem. What would you answer? How would you respond to Bernanke?
Ron Paul: Well, somebody asked me this yesterday, “What should he do?” and I said what I would really like to hear that he’s thrown in the towel and he’s giving up, that he admits that his theories are wrong and that all this QE stuff doesn’t work. But, you know, really right now the consequence of all this, and I know nobody looks at the money supply anymore, but M1 is growing at a 30% rate for these past 6 months. So that’s a lot of quantitative easing. And to continue to do this for ever and not talk about getting the tax rates down and get taxes lower with cutting spending, if we don’t do that, all the QEs in the world won’t solve our problems, it will eventually destroy our currency. And the world financial markets are not receiving what he’s saying or doing or what anybody else is saying or doing, because they’ve all studied from the same economic text books and I’d like to get them to think about free markets and how they should work.
Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann and Newt Gingrich gathered at Vermeer Corporation headquarters in Pella, Iowa for a forum sponsored by the National Association of Manufacturers.
This is a rush transcript. If you notice any errors please report them using the “Help improve this post” link at the bottom of this post.
Jason Lewis: You know, speaking of scaring big government activist on Halloween, I’ve got another thing that might scare them tonight; somebody running around dressed as President Ron Paul. That ought to scare any big-government activist. Joining us now is the Congressman from Texas and presidential candidate, who is busy surrounding the state of Iowa before January 3rd. He’s opening offices in surrounding states, one of those is Minnesota. Congressman Ron Paul joins us now, Congressman, welcome to the Jason Lewis Show.
Ron Paul: Thank you, it’s good to be with you.
Jason Lewis: You are opening offices in the Gopher State, but you’re probably circling the Hawkeye State, I imagine?
Ron Paul: Yea, we’re doing our best to be in every place we need to be, and I’m very pleased that the support has come in, financially as well as volunteers, to be able to do that. So we’re doing quite well as far as I’m concerned.
Jason Lewis: You’ll be in St. Cloud on Saturday for the big opening of the Minnesota festivities and, of course, you’ll be in and out of Iowa between now and January 3rd. There’s some good news for you, in the latest poll, the Des Moines Register Poll has Cain and Romney at the top, but the only other candidate in double digits is one Ron Paul at 12%.
Ron Paul: Yea, I’m pleased with that and, of course, it would be nicer to be a little bit higher, but one thing is we don’t have to worry about the dips. Some of the candidates come and they surge to the top and then suddenly they fade back. So I think we’re pretty secure where we are, and I think the growth will continue.
It is not too often I am pleased by the foreign policy announcements from this administration, but last week’s announcement that the war in Iraq was in its final stage and all the troops may be home for Christmas did sound promising. I have long said that we should simply declare victory and come home. It should not have taken us nearly a decade to do so, and it was supposed to be a priority for the new administration. Instead, it will be one of the last things done before the critical re-election campaign gets into full swing. Better late than never, but, examining the fine print, is there really much here to get excited about? Are all of our men and women really coming home, and is Iraq now to regain its sovereignty? And in this time of economic crisis, are we going to stop hemorrhaging money in Iraq? Sadly, it doesn’t look that way.
First and foremost, any form of withdrawal that is happening is not simply because the administration realized it was the right thing to do. This is not the fulfillment of a campaign promise, or because suddenly the training of their police and military is complete and Iraq is now safe and secure, but because of disagreements with the new government over a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA). The current agreement was set up by the previous administration to expire at the end of 2011. Apparently the Iraqis refused to allow continued immunity from prosecution for our forces for any crimes our soldiers might commit on Iraqi soil. Can you imagine having foreign soldiers here, with immunity from our laws and Constitution, with access to your neighborhood?
Some 39,000 American troops will supposedly be headed home by the end of the year. However, the US embassy in Iraq, which is the largest and most expensive in the world, is not being abandoned. Upwards of 17,000 military personnel and private security contractors will remain in Iraq to guard diplomatic personnel, continue training Iraqi forces, maintain “situational awareness” and other functions. This is still a significant American footprint in the country. And considering that a private security contractor costs the US taxpayer about three times as much as a soldier, we’re not going to see any real cost savings. Sadly, these contractors are covered under diplomatic immunity, meaning the Iraqi people will not get the accountability that they were hoping for.
While I applaud the spirit of this announcement – since all our troops should come home from overseas – I have strong reservations about any actual improvements in the situation in Iraq, since plans are already being made to increase the number of troops in surrounding regions. What we really need is a new foreign policy and there is no indication that that is what we have gotten. On the contrary, the administration fully intends to keep troops in Iraq, indefinitely, under a new agreement, while the Iraqis are doing their best to assert their sovereignty and kick us out. Neither are we going to be saving any significant amount of money. My greatest fear, however, is that this troop withdrawal from Iraq will simply pave the way for more endless, wasteful, needless wars.
If you thought the “Transportation Security Administration” would limit itself to conducting unconstitutional searches at airports, think again. The agency intends to assert jurisdiction over our nation’s highways, waterways, and railroads as well. TSA launched a new campaign of random checkpoints on Tennessee highways last week, complete with a sinister military-style acronym–VIP(E)R—as a name for the program.
As with TSA’s random searches at airports, these roadside searches are not based on any actual suspicion of criminal activity or any factual evidence of wrongdoing whatsoever by those detained. They are, in effect, completely random. So first we are told by the U.S. Supreme Court that American citizens have no 4th amendment protections at border crossings, even when standing on U.S. soil. Now TSA takes the next logical step and simply detains and searches U.S. citizens at wholly internal checkpoints.
The slippery slope is here. When does it end? How many more infringements on our liberties, our property, and our basic human rights to travel freely will it take before people become fed up enough to demand respect from their government? When will we demand that the government heed obvious constitutional limitations, and stop treating ordinary Americans as criminal suspects in the absence of probable cause?
The real tragedy occurs when Americans incrementally become accustomed to this treatment on the roads just as they have become accustomed to it in the airports. We already accept arriving at the airport 2 or more hours before a flight to get through security; will we soon have to build in an extra 2 or 3 hours into our road trips to allow for checkpoint traffic?
Worse, some people are lulled into a false sense of security and are actually grateful for this added police presence! Should we really hail the expansion of the police state as an enhancement to safety? I submit that an attitude of acquiescence to TSA authority is thoroughly dangerous, un-American, and insulting to earlier freedom-loving generations who built this country.
I am certain people will complain about this, once they have to sit in stopped traffic for a few extra hours to allow for random searches of cars. However, I am also certain it merely will take another “foiled” plot to silence many people into gladly accepting more government mismanagement of safety.
Vigilant, observant, law-abiding, gun-owning citizens defend themselves and stop crimes every day before police can respond. That is the source of real security in America: the 2nd Amendment right to defend oneself. The answer is for people to be empowered to protect themselves. Yet how many weapons might these checkpoints confiscate? Even when individual go through all the legal hoops of licensing and permits, the chances of harassment or outright confiscation of weapons and detention of citizens when those weapons are found at a TSA checkpoint is extremely high.
Disarming the highways and filling them full of jack-booted thugs demanding to see our papers is no way to make them safer. Instead, it is a great way to expand government surveillance powers and tighten the noose around our liberties.
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Ron Paul is a proud Air Force veteran. He served as a flight surgeon in the U.S. Air Force from 1963 to 1965 and then in the U.S. Air National Guard from 1965 to 1968. During his military service Ron Paul spent time on the ground in Iran, Pakistan, South Korea, Turkey, Ethiopia and other countries.
Ron Paul has been married to his wife Carol Wells since 1957. They have five children: Ronald, Lori, Rand, Robert, and Joy. Paul's son Rand is the junior senator from the state of Kentucky.
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