Ron Paul 's Economic Strategy...

Discussion in 'Miscellaneous' started by Smokin', Jan 24, 2008.

  1. Smokin'

    Smokin' Administrator

    Joined:
    Jan 3, 2005
    Location:
    Machu Picchu
    ... this has been floating aruond web all day today, but i just decided to glance it over.

    Being as how the Economy is the biggest issue right now and for good reason I figured I would lay out Ron Pauls Plan that he made public recently.

    Ron Paul, a 10-term Republican congressman from Texas's 14th District, is currently the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee's Subcommittee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy, Trade, and Technology. He has been named "Taxpayers' Best Friend" for 10 consecutive years by the National Taxpayers' Union. Ron Paul is also the author of several books on monetary policy and economics.

    The Four-Point Plan

    1. Tax Reform: Reduce the tax burden and eliminate taxes that punish investment and savings, including job-killing corporate taxes.
    2. Spending Reform: Eliminate wasteful spending. Reduce overseas commitments. Freeze all non-defense, non-entitlement spending at current levels.
    3. Monetary Policy Reform: Expand openness with the Federal Reserve and require the Fed to televise its meetings. Return value to our money.
    4. Regulatory Reform: Repeal Sarbanes/Oxley regulations that push companies to seek capital outside of US markets. Stop restricting community banks from fostering local economic growth.

    1. Tax Reform

    * Eliminate Taxes on Dividends and Savings. The basis of capitalism is savings, and Americans who do so should be rewarded.
    o Pass HJ Res. 23 to encourage savings over consumption.

    * Repeal the Death Tax. Attacking small businesses and breaking up family farms smothers growth and kills jobs.
    o Pass H.R. 2734 to make the Bush tax cuts permanent.

    * Cut Taxes for Working Seniors. Grandmothers and grandfathers working to make ends meet should keep all the fruits of their labor.
    o Pass H.R. 191 to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to repeal the inclusion in gross income of Social Security benefits.

    * Eliminate Taxes on Social Security Benefits. That money belongs to seniors, not the government. They paid into the system for a lifetime, and they should be free to spend every penny as they see fit.
    o Pass H.R. 192 to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to repeal the 1993 increase in taxes on Social Security benefits.

    * Accelerate Depreciation on Investment. We need to help companies grow and create jobs.
    o Pass H.R. 4995 and amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to reduce corporate marginal income tax rates.

    * Eliminate Taxes on Capital Gains. Investment should be embraced and rewarded.
    o Pass H.J. Res 23 (The “Liberty Amendment”), proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States relative to abolishing personal income, estate, and gift taxes and prohibiting the United States Government from engaging in business in competition with its citizens.

    * Eliminate Taxes on Tips.The single parents and working students who earn their income chiefly through tips deserve to keep all of their money. This tax on "estimated income" is unfair and should be ended.
    o Pass H.R. 3664 to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide that tips shall not be subject to income or employment taxes.

    * Support Mortgage Cancelation Relief Act. Working families who lost their homes should not be punished a second time with a big IRS bill.
    o Pass H.R. 1876 to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to exclude from gross income of individual taxpayers discharges of indebtedness attributable to certain forgiven residential mortgage obligations.

    2. Spending Reform

    * Reduce Overseas Military Commitments. Our bases and troops should be on our soil, bolstering our economy.
    o It's time to stop subsidizing our business competitors in Europe, Japan and South Korea.

    * Freeze Non-Defense, Non-Entitlement Spending at Current Levels
    o I vote against all bloated, pork laden spending bills and will veto them as president.

    3. Monetary Policy Reform

    * Televise Federal Open Market Committee Meetings. An institution as powerful as the Federal Reserve deserves full public scrutiny.

    * Expand Transparency and Accountability at the Federal Reserve
    o Pass H.R. 2754 to require the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System to continue to make available to the public on a weekly basis information on the measure of the M3 monetary aggregate and its components.

    * Return Value to Our Money. Legalize gold and silver as a competing currency.
    o Level the long-term boom and bust business cycle by passing H.R. 4683, which would repeal provisions of the federal criminal code relating to issuance coins of gold, silver, or other metal for use as current money and making or possessing likenesses of such coins.

    4. Regulatory Reform

    * Repeal Sarbanes/Oxley. It has seriously wounded our capital markets and helped make the UK the financial center at our expense.
    o Ending these misguided regulations would bring jobs flooding back to the United States
    o Pass H.R. 1049 to reform Sarbanes-Oxley and reduce the burden it places on small businesses.

    * Repeal or Remove Costly and Unnecessary Federal Regulations. Neighbors know best how to help their neighbors.
    o We need to make it easier for community banks, credit unions, and other financial institutions to better serve their communities and to help people in these communities get access to credit and capital.
    o Pass H.R. 1869 to enhance the ability of community banks to foster economic growth and serve their communities, boost small businesses, increase individual savings, and for other purposes.

    This is in contrast with Mitt Romney's plan:
    " I know lots about business and money."

    Rudy's Plan:
    I 9/11'd the NY economy once.

    John McCain:
    "I don't know much about economics"...

    Mike Huckabee:
    "The Fairly Flat tax will fix everything."

    OK, so I dont know thier plans... but thats the point. If anyone can expand on those or just comment on what you think about Ron Paul's ideas.
     
    #1
    Smokin', Jan 24, 2008
  2. HatterDon

    HatterDon Moderator

    Joined:
    Mar 18, 2006
    Location:
    Peoples Republic of South Texas
    Well, first of all the big trick is determining what spending is "unnecessary" and "wasteful," and what bills are "bloated" and "pork laden."

    Second of all, with our infrastructure literally crumbling around us, I think that freezing spending levels on it isn't a great idea.

    Recommending repealing the amendment that gave us a graduated income tax will give the nation nothing in the way of a benefit. It will, however, get you named man of the year by the Taxpayers Union -- the most retrograde lobbying outfit there is.

    There is a 4th Big Lie and that is that the "Death Tax" [Republicans are good at naming things] damages small farms. It replaced the previous Republican Big Lie that the welfare roles were filled primarily with African American women who kept having children so they could get rich from the benefits and buy color TVs. The Estate Tax is, and always has been, a good idea. Nobody has been ruined by it; nobody's heirs have had to live under a bridge as a result of it.

    Similarly, cutting the capital gains tax below its current level sends the clear message that working for your paycheck is stupid. After all, the government rewards people who just sit back and live off their investments.

    I see no value in going back on the gold standard, never mind the silver standard. It seems to me that William Jennings Bryan lost THREE races for president on that platform -- and the most recent one was more than 100 years ago.

    I like the idea of bringing the soldiers back to the continent, but this would make it impossible to enjoy the away field advantage we got by winning WWII -- that is, by fielding our troops overseas, WWIII gets to be fought in Europe and Asia. Similarly, all those troops coming back would have no room on our stateside bases and no jobs to do if there was room. So we'd have to have a massive cutback on the size of the military -- say, back to pre-WWII levels. So the ultimate benefit here would be a poorer defense and more unempoyment -- just like before WWII!

    I'm not sure if RP's supporters realize that we are in a global economy. The last American brand car I drove -- a Pontiac -- was made in Korea. The cars my wife and I have driven sence them -- a Mazda truck, a Honda Accord, and two Subarus -- were all made in the United States. On a larger scale, the world is involved in our economy in terms of bonds they by. They are subsidizing our stupid war, and the weak dollar is bringing in huge sales for our exporters. The kind of economic isolationsim that RP preaches is an essential weakness of the Libertarian movement. It would be like the modern day Republicans running against ending the spread of slavery to the western territories. That boat has sailed. NO COUNTRY will ever have that kind of economy again.

    "Neighbors know how to help neighbors." That's true -- they also know best how to fleece them. Witness the S&L scandal. Sorry, Ron, there's a place for the federal government in the marketplace. It's easy talk about cutting regulations, but we've all seen what happens when they're cut for no reason. As for large-scale deregulation, look at Television/radio/print media, telephone, banking, and the airlines as good examples of large industries freed from government regulation to compete in the market place.

    1. TV, etc. -- poorer quality of content, dimunation of news accuracy and seriousness, newspapers closing at an alarming rate, and the majority of Americans who turn to none of these for their news and entertainment. Finally, the "free market" has allowed fewer than a half-dozen mega corporations to dominate. THEY now regulate everything and the consumer has no voice.

    2. telephone -- the breakup of Ma Bell, like the big bang, has closed in on itself. All the babies are back in AT&T. Things are more expensive than before and poorer in quality. Our phone system was once the wonder of the rest of the world. Now it's crap. Other phone companies exist, certainly, but they're basically cartels working in concert with each other. Verizon, AT&T, and one or two others not only own most of the market, but also actively discourage electronic experimentation in order to keep control over bandwidth.

    3. The neighborhood bank, and the city-owned, or state-owned bank is pretty much gone the way of the passenger pigeon. Most banks in my community are on their 5th or 6th name in the past 15 years. Benefits are down, services are much poorer, and there is no connection at all with the community in which they're located. Like tele-communications, there are 3 or 4 major players, and the LAST thing they're interested in are folks who use a bank for pass book savings or local checking.

    4. The airlines. I never thought I'd see the country with no TWA, no Eastern, and no Pan-Am. Of the big carriers of the 1960s, the only one left is American. Thanks, deregulation. We now have fewer connections, fewer flights, fewer amenities, and significantly higher costs. We must also fly while being attended to by people whose employers have consistently screwed them over repeatedly. Makes for a fun time in the sky.

    There is some real good stuff about what you've posted there, Smokin', and that's that RP has fewer glittering generalities. I'd be unable to pick apart the economic positions of any of the other candidates, because none of them will engage in the specificity that RP does.

    Hmmmm. Two paragraphs more and I'd have to serialize this mother.
     
    #2
    HatterDon, Jan 24, 2008
  3. pettyfog

    pettyfog Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 4, 2005
    Good Stuff, Don.. and provocative.

    Airlines: How to get from here to there.. And yet there are new airlines being started all the time. Whose charter is to provide transportation, not an adventure vacation. Thus it's cheaper than ever to take a flying trip. Esp if you can plan in advance. Actually cheaper to fly than buy the gas to take the equivalent trip by car. First time ever.

    Banks: have to compete across the board with numerous other savings and loan institutions. Sad?

    Yet the effect doesnt matter a whole lot... except that one of those 'friendly neighborhood banks' will never again squander away a million in investments, as they did for my widowed aunt.
    And of course they are ALL competing with each other, hundreds of them.. not one two or ten.

    Telephone? Get serious! What a throwback.... Don wishes for Signal System 7 stasis. ATT was bloated and going nowhere, using wrong-headed technology {Lucent}. SBC learned how to compete, lean and mean.

    All you can talk for $25 a month, nationwide. That's where it is in some places and that's where it's going. Built of course on the phone-co fiber infrastructure. Using massively available technology.

    To elaborate on Don's view of the military, you cannot ply free trade without a global presence. And you cannot command a global presence from a Norfolk or San Diego or Pearl Harbor dock. Nor can you negotiate diplomatically. The reason?

    If we vacate that leaves a vacuum.. nature and malignant governments abhor a vacuum.

    I WOULD have liked to see us draw down Korean and German presence.. we really dont have a lot in Japan, IIRC.
    For the reason Paul stipulates... time for those host countries to step up.

    And why are we still in the Balkans? He's got a point there, as well.

    NATO probably is sorry they didnt get a little more proactive, you guys dont believe me but Europe is adopting the Serbian attitudes all too quickly.
    - - -- - - - - -- - -
    Gold, Silver standard?!!
    Those ideas were incorporated when both gold and silver were only valued for rarity, jewelry and coinage.. we're are in the technology age now, and those rare metals are used in industry.

    They are NOW COMMODITIES.. and if you wish to trade in them you can right now. We already base our currency on commodities - oil. Want to change that? how about corn?
     
    #3
    pettyfog, Jan 24, 2008
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