Deconstructing America's Savior - Part 2

Libertarians and constitutionalist conservatives typically support Ron Paul. Since I consider myself to be moderately libertarian in my political views and I lean towards originalist interpretations of the Constitution, I feel compelled to explain why I do not and will not support Ron Paul as a candidate for the Presidency. This is the second in a series of several posts in which I pick apart his policy platform and explain my objections.

Previous posts in the series:

1. An introduction to Ron Paul's policy platform.

This time, let's pick apart his policy statement regarding Debt and Taxes:

Working Americans like lower taxes. So do I. Lower taxes benefit all of us, creating jobs and allowing us to make more decisions for ourselves about our lives.

Whether a tax cut reduces a single mother’s payroll taxes by $40 a month or allows a business owner to save thousands in capital gains taxes and hire more employees, that tax cut is a good thing. Lower taxes allow more spending, saving, and investing which helps the economy — that means all of us.

Real conservatives have always supported low taxes and low spending.

I agree that the economy (and by extension, the majority of the populace) benefits from low marginal tax rates. I agree that Americans are generally better off being being free to make our own economic choices rather than having economic choices dictated to us by a paternalistic government. On the other hand, I see two significant qualifiers to this general rule:

1) The federal government has a legitimate role to play in providing some services to citizens. Insofar as the government must provide these services, taxes are necessary to fund this work. At some point, lower taxes are not an option. When a lower tax rate results in government revenue that is too low to fund government operations, the tax rate is too low. Ron Paul can argue for lower taxes, but this is a policy goal which can only be implemented if government spending is reduced.

2) It simply isn't true that "lower taxes benefit all of us". It is arguably true that lower tax rates would be a net boost to the economy. It is arguably true that most government spending programs are misguided, wasteful and ineffective. But the truth is that some people do benefit from our current regime of resource redistribution. Politically, the low levels of taxation and government spending that Ron Paul wants to see are simply unattainable. Most conservatives are willing to compromise in the face of political reality. Ron Paul, not so much.

But today, too many politicians and lobbyists are spending America into ruin. We are nine trillion dollars in debt as a nation. Our mounting government debt endangers the financial future of our children and grandchildren. If we don’t cut spending now, higher taxes and economic disaster will be in their future — and yours.

Armageddon is coming. Repent. Yes, we spend too much money. Yes, we should have been running a surplus over the last several years to pay down the national debt while we were in the midst of an economic expansion. The end of the world is not yet in sight though. In the grand scheme of things recent deficits haven't been a serious problem.

In addition, the Federal Reserve, our central bank, fosters runaway debt by increasing the money supply — making each dollar in your pocket worth less. The Fed is a private bank run by unelected officials who are not required to be open or accountable to “we the people.”

The Federal Reserve is one of Ron Paul's favorite bogeymen. Here he argues that the unaccountable Fed creates inflation. While he doesn't mention it here, it's no secret that Paul would like to abolish the Fed and put America back on the Gold Standard. He calls the Fed "unaccountable", but in reality it is a creation of Congress, it is governed by a Board whose members are appointed (and who can be dismissed) by the President and the whole system can be altered by Congress if necessary. I can't deny that the Fed definitely does try to achieve a positive (albeit low) rate of inflation. This is a feature, not a bug. Smarter folks than I will argue that inflation is *NOT* always a bad thing. As for putting America back on the Gold Standard, I'd rather vote for Hillary than for somebody who honestly thinks that the Gold Standard is significantly better than a well managed fiat currency. I'm not exaggerating, either.

Worse, our economy and our very independence as a nation is increasingly in the hands of foreign governments such as China and Saudi Arabia, because their central banks also finance our runaway spending.

Never look a gift horse in the mouth. Another way to describe this situation is to say that the central banks of China and Saudi Arabia continue to see the U.S. as the safest place to invest their money. If they choose to invest in America by offering us very low rates of interest, the rational response is to say "thank you", but only after grabbing their cash. We wouldn't want them to rescind the offer while we're busy being polite...

We cannot continue to allow private banks, wasteful agencies, lobbyists, corporations on welfare, and governments collecting foreign aid to dictate the size of our ballooning budget. We need a new method to prioritize our spending. It’s called the Constitution of the United States.

"Private banks" is Paul's way of saying "the Federal Reserve". Enough said about that. Sure, many government agencies are wasteful, pork barrel spending is a problem that I'd love to see reduced, and I think foreign aid is generally counterproductive, at best. But Paul is missing the forest for the trees. The biggest fiscal problem we face is entitlement spending: these are the liabilities in future budgets that the federal government will not be able to fund. Foreign aid is, in relative terms, a pittance. A real solution to our over-grown entitlement spending isn't politically feasible (at least, not right now). Paul's ultimate solution is to return to the Constitution to find a blueprint for the Federal Government's fiscal and monetary future. This makes sense, in Ron Paul's dream world. In reality, we are never going to roll back the size and scope of the Federal Government to the extent that Paul desires.

Ron Paul's past history of absolutely uncompromising devotion to his principles leads me to believe that he would be a horrible President. As an uncompromising congressman, Paul is a valuable (embarrassingly rabid, but valuable nonetheless) voice for limited government. As President, Paul would gladly grid-lock the country into disaster in pursuit of his goals. To do so in pursuit of limited government is somewhat understandable. To do so in a quest to restore the Gold Standard would be laughably bad policy.

Next up: Ron Paul's policies with regard to American Independence and Sovereignty.