It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
Since my 2008 campaign for the presidency I have often been asked, “How would a constitutionalist president go about dismantling the welfare-warfare state and restoring a constitutional republic?” This is a very important question, because without a clear road map and set of priorities, such a president runs the risk of having his pro-freedom agenda stymied by the various vested interests that benefit from big government.
Of course, just as the welfare-warfare state was not constructed in 100 days, it could not be dismantled in the first 100 days of any presidency. While our goal is to reduce the size of the state as quickly as possible, we should always make sure our immediate proposals minimize social disruption and human suffering. Thus, we should not seek to abolish the social safety net overnight because that would harm those who have grown dependent on government-provided welfare. Instead, we would want to give individuals who have come to rely on the state time to prepare for the day when responsibility for providing aide is returned to those organizations best able to administer compassionate and effective help—churches and private charities.
No matter what the president wants to do, most major changes in government programs would require legislation to be passed by Congress. Obviously, the election of a constitutionalist president would signal that our ideas had been accepted by a majority of the American public and would probably lead to the election of several pro-freedom congressmen and senators. Furthermore, some senators and representatives would become “born again” constitutionalists out of a sense of self-preservation. Yet there would still be a fair number of politicians who would try to obstruct our freedom agenda. Thus, even if a president wanted to eliminate every unconstitutional program in one fell swoop, he would be very unlikely to obtain the necessary support in Congress...
...While the president can do a great deal on his own, to really restore the Constitution and cut back on the vast unconstitutional programs that have sunk roots in Washington over 60 years, he will have to work with Congress. The first step in enacting a pro-freedom legislative agenda is the submission of a budget that outlines the priorities of the administration. While it has no legal effect, the budget serves as a guideline for the congressional appropriations process.
A constitutionalist president’s budget should do the following:
1. Reduce overall federal spending
2. Prioritize cuts in oversize expenditures, especially the military
3. Prioritize cuts in corporate welfare
4. Use 50 percent of the savings from cuts in overseas spending to shore up entitlement programs for those who are dependent on them and the other 50 percent to pay down the debt
5. Provide for reduction in federal bureaucracy and lay out a plan to return responsibility for education to the states
6. Begin transitioning entitlement programs from a system where all Americans are forced to participate into one where taxpayers can opt out of the programs and make their own provisions for retirement and medical care
If Congress failed to produce a budget that was balanced and moved the country in a pro-liberty direction, a constitutionalist president should veto the bill. Of course, vetoing the budget risks a government shutdown. But a serious constitutionalist cannot be deterred by cries of “it’s irresponsible to shut down the government!” Instead, he should simply say, “I offered a reasonable compromise, which was to gradually reduce spending, and Congress rejected it, instead choosing the extreme path of continuing to jeopardize America’s freedom and prosperity by refusing to tame the welfare-warfare state. I am the moderate; those who believe that America can afford this bloated government are the extremists.”
Originally posted by lifeoflyman
I love Ron Paul I only Pray He wins!
Eliminating federal involvement in K-12 education should be among a constitutionalist president’s top domestic priorities. The Constitution makes no provision for federal meddling in education. It is hard to think of a function less suited to a centralized, bureaucratic approach than education. The very idea that a group of legislators and bureaucrats in D.C. can design a curriculum capable of meeting the needs of every American schoolchild is ludicrous. The deteriorating performance of our schools as federal control over the classroom has grown shows the folly of giving Washington more power over American education. President Bush’s No Child Left Behind law claimed it would fix education by making public schools “accountable.” However, supporters of the law failed to realize that making schools more accountable to federal agencies, instead of to parents, was just perpetuating the problem.
In the years since No Child Left Behind was passed, I don’t think I have talked to any parent or teacher who is happy with the law. Therefore, a constitutionalist president looking for ways to improve the lives of children should demand that Congress cut the federal education bureaucracy as a down payment on eventually returning 100 percent of the education dollar to parents.
Traditionally, the battle to reduce the federal role in education has been the toughest one faced by limited-government advocates, as supporters of centralized education have managed to paint constitutionalists as “anti-education.” But who is really anti-education? Those who wish to continue to waste taxpayer money on failed national schemes, or those who want to restore control over education to the local level? When the debate is framed this way, I have no doubt the side of liberty will win. When you think about it, the argument that the federal government needs to control education is incredibly insulting to the American people, for it implies that the people are too stupid or uncaring to educate their children properly. Contrary to those who believe that only the federal government can ensure children’s education, I predict a renaissance in education when parents are put back in charge.
You are choosing to be ruled by corporations with no government for protection. We are suffering the most in America, compared to the rest of the Western world, because we are on this insane "no deficit, no regulation" orgy.
That government is best which governs least.
Originally posted by Crimelab
Ron Paul : "On the right-to-life issue, I believe, I’m a real stickler for civil liberties. It’s academic to talk about civil liberties if you don’t talk about the true protection of all life. So if you are going to protect liberty, you have to protect the life of the unborn just as well."
"I have a Bill in congress I certainly would promote and push as president, called the Sanctity of Life Amendment. We establish the principle that life begins at conception. And someone says, ‘oh why are you saying that?’ and I say, ‘well, that’s not a political statement -- that’s a scientific statement that I’m making!“
Good thing we know that Dr. Paul's concern for individual liberty ends when a brood mare (woman) is involved.
And it's real 'scientific' to claim that dead, lifeless sperm
Originally posted by Crimelab
and eggs somehow become infused with "life" when they bump in to each other in the night.
If you take such perverted logic to its obvious end... any woman who engages in a sex act which MIGHT cause pregnancy should be immediately placed on bedrest and constant medical monitoring for the rest of the gestation. Anything less is a abrogation of the rights of the Individual residing in her womb.
Oh wait. The fetus has no individual rights because it isn't recognized as INDIVIDUAL until birth.
Ron Paul is no different than any other politician. Government is great when it is enforcing what he wants enforced. And being a rabid pro-life freak hiding behind small government propaganda is not revolutionary. It's legislating morality which should be anathema to a Libertarian.
Originally posted by Scytherius
This is insane. Ron Paul wants to turn it over to "market forces". He thinks that the citizens will act like some giant organism and regulate the market. Is he a time traveler from 1890 perhaps?
World markets (there are no local or even National markets anymore) will never, ever respond to some small group of pissed off Americans. I am stunned that those of you that speak of one world government, illuminati, etc actually believe that Ron Paul's ideas of "freedom" are a good idea, much less will work.
You are choosing to be ruled by corporations with no government for protection. We are suffering the most in America, compared to the rest of the Western world, because we are on this insane "no deficit, no regulation" orgy.
Wanna sweep in the NWO even faster? Vote for Ron Paul.
Originally posted by Scytherius
This is insane. Ron Paul wants to turn it over to "market forces". He thinks that the citizens will act like some giant organism and regulate the market. Is he a time traveler from 1890 perhaps?
World markets (there are no local or even National markets anymore) will never, ever respond to some small group of pissed off Americans. I am stunned that those of you that speak of one world government, illuminati, etc actually believe that Ron Paul's ideas of "freedom" are a good idea, much less will work.
You are choosing to be ruled by corporations with no government for protection. We are suffering the most in America, compared to the rest of the Western world, because we are on this insane "no deficit, no regulation" orgy.
Wanna sweep in the NWO even faster? Vote for Ron Paul.