Ron Paul's Campaign for Liberty

[Rincevent]

Que les think tanks actuels étiquetés free-market sont souvent pro-guerre (sauf cato/mises), et pro-banque centrale(sauf mises).

L'Independant Institute est assez peu pro-guerre.

[LeSanton]

Ron Paul l'avait prédit: http://ronpaulblog.com/

Congressman Ron Paul

U.S. House of Representatives

July 16, 2002

Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce the Free Housing Market Enhancement Act. This legislation restores a free market in housing by repealing special privileges for housing-related government sponsored enterprises (GSEs). These entities are the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie), the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie), and the National Home Loan Bank Board (HLBB). According to the Congressional Budget Office, the housing-related GSEs received $13.6 billion worth of indirect federal subsidies in fiscal year 2000 alone.

One of the major government privileges granted these GSEs is a line of credit to the United States Treasury. According to some estimates, the line of credit may be worth over $2 billion. This explicit promise by the Treasury to bail out these GSEs in times of economic difficulty helps them attract investors who are willing to settle for lower yields than they would demand in the absence of the subsidy. Thus, the line of credit distorts the allocation of capital. More importantly, the line of credit is a promise on behalf of the government to engage in a massive unconstitutional and immoral income transfer from working Americans to holders of GSE debt.

The Free Housing Market Enhancement Act also repeals the explicit grant of legal authority given to the Federal Reserve to purchase the debt of housing-related GSEs. GSEs are the only institutions besides the United States Treasury granted explicit statutory authority to monetize their debt through the Federal Reserve. This provision gives the GSEs a source of liquidity unavailable to their competitors.

Ironically, by transferring the risk of a widespread mortgage default, the government increases the likelihood of a painful crash in the housing market. This is because the special privileges of Fannie, Freddie, and HLBB have distorted the housing market by allowing them to attract capital they could not attract under pure market conditions. As a result, capital is diverted from its most productive use into housing. This reduces the efficacy of the entire market and thus reduces the standard of living of all Americans.

However, despite the long-term damage to the economy inflicted by the government’s interference in the housing market, the government’s policies of diverting capital to other uses creates a short-term boom in housing. Like all artificially-created bubbles, the boom in housing prices cannot last forever. When housing prices fall, homeowners will experience difficulty as their equity is wiped out. Furthermore, the holders of the mortgage debt will also have a loss. These losses will be greater than they would have otherwise been had government policy not actively encouraged over-investment in housing.

Perhaps the Federal Reserve can stave off the day of reckoning by purchasing GSE debt and pumping liquidity into the housing market, but this cannot hold off the inevitable drop in the housing market forever. In fact, postponing the necessary but painful market corrections will only deepen the inevitable fall. The more people invested in the market, the greater the effects across the economy when the bubble bursts.

No less an authority than Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has expressed concern that government subsidies provided to the GSEs make investors underestimate the risk of investing in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Mr. Speaker, it is time for Congress to act to remove taxpayer support from the housing GSEs before the bubble bursts and taxpayers are once again forced to bail out investors misled by foolish government interference in the market. I therefore hope my colleagues will stand up for American taxpayers and investors by cosponsoring the Free Housing Market Enhancement Act.

[Bastiat]

Le financement est à 100% privé et les entreprises peuvent donner. Et les partis ne sont pas tenu de dire d'où vient leur argent. C'est ce que j'appelle : libre.

Pour le coup, que les personnes morales donnent et que les actionnaires/adhérents/sociétaires ne soient pas au courant de combien et à qui ça me gène. Car s'ils le savaient dans la plus part des cas l'info sortirait vite au moins pour les grosses sommes.

Sur ce point la législation française ou seul les personnes physiques peuvent donner (y compris les actionnaires pris individuellement) me semble bien.

Ron Paul l'avait prédit: http://ronpaulblog.com/

Excellent

[Ash]

Pas mal pour un connard de raciste xénophobe

[rixxe]

Chuck Norris : "Ron Paul is the only guy I trust"

8:00

[h16]

Si Chuck le dit…

[Franklin]

Après avoir soutenu Huckabee…

[Ash]

Exclusif ! Les chaussures de Ron Paul :

http://www.ronpaulsshoes.blogspot.com/

[Sous-Commandant Marco]

Un membre de Campaign for Liberty harcelé par la sinistre TSA, l'autorité en charge de la sécurité dans les avions et les aéroports américains:

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/US/06/20/tsa.lawsuit/index.html

[Ale]

Un fan de Ron Paul de 19 ans élu maire

Rice Lake Voters Elect 19-Year-Old Mayor

Reporting

Bill Hudson

RICE LAKE, Wis. (WCCO) ―

A young man wearing a Hollister T-shirt, shorts and sandals picked up election signs Wednesday in Rice Lake, Wis. The 19-year-old wasn't a campaign volunteer. Romaine Quinn is the new mayor.

Quinn, who served one year on the Rice Lake City Council before being elected mayor on Tuesday, said, "Age, I don't think, necessarily makes a difference, I mean, it's about the issues."

Judging by the talk at Maxine's restaurant, he might be right.

"Apparently, a lot of people wanted change," said 78-year-old Del Hanson, who voted for Quinn.

A couple seats down the counter, Richard Cerminar wished he could have cast a ballot for the young candidate.

"From what I understand, an extremely nice young man," said Cerminar, who lives just outside Rice Lake proper.

Cerminar thinks Romaine's big win had a lot to do with what happened on Manwaring Avenue and other roads around town.

"They cut down trees that were 40 and 50 years old and put in sidewalks nobody needed or wanted," he said.

"They just didn't listen," said George Erickson. "Basically everybody on this street didn't want a sidewalk."

The "improvements" being made by the city are effectively taking away half of Erickson's front yard.

It doesn't help that the project got started late last fall and is still ongoing.

JoAnn Erickson said her front yard has been a muddy mess much of the past several months.

The Ericksons and their neighbors filled the council chambers to protest plans to put in sidewalks.

"The council wouldn't listen, but Romaine was one that said, 'I think we should listen to the people,' and no, they wouldn't," Joann recalled.

"People want someone who's proud to serve as mayor, but still humble enough to realize he's no better than anyone else in town," said Quinn, who takes political science classes at the University of Wisconsin-Barron County.

He cites Ron Paul, the libertarian-leaning Republican congressman from Texas, as his political role model.

The Ericksons voted for a young mayor once before. JoAnn said that was a "disaster."

She's not worried about Quinn's fitness for the job or his age.

"Doesn't matter. He's got a head on his shoulders," said JoAnn. "He'll do fine. I'm sure he'll do fine. It'll surprise me if he doesn't."

During his campaign, Quinn told voters he wants to hold the line on taxes, replace the city administrator and, of course, reconsider plans to put sidewalks all over Rice Lake.

He beat incumbent mayor Dan Fitzgerald with 53 percent of the vote.

Paula Engelking, Producer

Election 2012: Barack Obama 42%, Ron Paul 41%

Election 2012: Barack Obama 42%, Ron Paul 41%

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Pit maverick Republican Congressman Ron Paul against President Obama in a hypothetical 2012 election match-up, and the race is – virtually dead even.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of likely voters finds Obama with 42% support and Paul with 41% of the vote. Eleven percent (11%) prefer some other candidate, and six percent (6%) are undecided.

Ask the Political Class, though, and it’s a blowout. While 58% of Mainstream voters favor Paul, 95% of the Political Class vote for Obama.

But Republican voters also have decidedly mixed feelings about Paul, who has been an outspoken critic of the party establishment.

Obama earns 79% support from Democrats, but Paul gets just 66% of GOP votes. Voters not affiliated with either major party give Paul a 47% to 28% edge over the president.

Paul, an anti-big government libertarian who engenders unusually strong feelings among his supporters, was an unsuccessful candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. But he continues to have a solid following, especially in the growing Tea Party movement.

Twenty-four percent (24%) of voters now consider themselves a part of the Tea Party movement, an eight-point increase from a month ago. Another 10% say they are not a part of the movement but have close friends or family members who are.

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.

Thirty-nine percent (39%) of all voters have a favorable opinion of Paul, while 30% view him unfavorably. This includes 10% with a very favorable opinion and 12% with a very unfavorable one. But nearly one-out-of-three voters (32%) are not sure what they think of Paul.

Perhaps tellingly, just 42% of Republican voters have a favorable view of him, including eight percent (8%) with a very favorable opinion. By comparison, 42% of unaffiliated voters regard him favorably, with 15% very favorable toward him.

Twenty-six percent (26%) of GOP voters think Paul shares the values of most Republican voters throughout the nation, but 25% disagree. Forty-nine percent (49%) are not sure.

Similarly, 27% of Republicans see Paul as a divisive force in the party, while 30% view him as a new direction for the GOP. Forty-two percent (42%) aren’t sure.

Among all voters, 19% say Paul shares the values of most Republican voters, and 27% disagree. Fifty-four percent (54%) are undecided.

Twenty-one percent (21%) of voters nationwide regard Paul as a divisive force in the GOP. Thirty-four percent (34%) say he is representative of a new direction for the party. Forty-five percent (45%) are not sure.

But it’s important to note than 75% of Republicans voters believe Republicans in Congress have lost touch with GOP voters throughout the nation over the past several years.

Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska and the GOP’s vice presidential nominee in 2008, is another Republican who has been bucking the party’s traditional leadership and was the keynote speaker at the recent Tea Party convention in Nashville. Fifty-nine percent (59%) of Republican voters say Palin shares the values of most GOP voters throughout the nation. Just 18% of Republicans see Palin as a divisive force within the GOP.

Rasmussen Reports released survey findings yesterday that take a closer look at the political views of those who say they’re part of the Tea Party movement. Among other things, 96% of those in the movement think America is overtaxed, and 94% trust the judgment of the American people more than that of America’s political leaders.

When it comes to major issues confronting the nation, 48% of voters now say the average Tea Party member is closer to their views than Obama is. Forty-four percent (44%) hold the opposite view and believe the president’s views are closer to their own.

Fifty-two percent (52%) believe the average member of the Tea Party movement has a better understanding of the issues facing America today than the average member of Congress. Thirty-five percent (35%) of voters now think Republicans and Democrats are so much alike that an entirely new political party is needed to represent the American people. Nearly half (47%) of voters disagree and say a new party is not needed

If the Tea Party was organized as a political party, 34% of voters would prefer a Democrat in a three-way congressional race. In that hypothetical match-up, the Republican gets 27% of the vote with the Tea Party hopeful in third at 21%. However, if only the Democrat or Republican had a real chance to win, most of the Tea Party supporters would vote for the Republican.

Please sign up for the Rasmussen Reports daily e-mail update (it’s free) or follow us on Twitter or Facebook. Let us keep you up to date with the latest public opinion news.

See survey questions and toplines. Crosstabs are available to Premium Members only.

[Lassie]

Ron Paul a juste un problème : même sil était élu il subirait le système de Wash qui est complètement bloque depuis des années.

[Kevinz]

Ron Paul a juste un problème : même sil était élu il subirait le système de Wash qui est complètement bloque depuis des années.

Pour le président ?

Non, il fait ce qu'il veut: cf. Executive orders

Le moins dangereux étant de rappeler aux états qu'ils ont un pouvoir encore plus grand: cf. nullification / interposition.

Probablement la meilleure solution.

[Lassie]

Le Congres bloquerait ses projets et il s'était oblige de négocier en permanence

[Lassie]

Curieux… mais cela pourrait expliquer pourquoi Ron Paul fait un score si élevé

http://comments.americanthinker.com/read/42323/510824.html

The Republicans are as big a problem as the Democrats. Their acceptance of corporate crony capitalism, politicized money and international interventionism are accompanied by a growing federal criminal code and the pursuit of lost causes such as the 'war on drugs'. It's time for a new party to step forward, one that embraces the classical liberal principles that the Republicans used to fight for of limited, responsible Federal government and maximum individual freedom. We last saw some kind of real small government impulses from Reagan, but he couldn't follow through on his rollback impulses, such as eliminating whole departments of government, but rather caved to the static quo because the Washington, DC machine is harder to fell than the Soviet Union. Reagan said, "If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism."

[Kevinz]

Le Congres bloquerait ses projets et il s'était oblige de négocier en permanence

Le président des États-Unis peut faire ses propres lois sans passer par le Congrès et le Sénat.

En signant des executive orders ("Strike of the pen, law of the land")..

C'est anticonstitutionnel, donc je ne sais pas si Ron Paul serait tout de même tenté de le faire, surtout qu'il dénonce cette pratique assez souvent.

Autrement il y a les États.

Ils peuvent rendre nulle et non avenue (null and void) toute loi fédérale anticonstitutionnelle sur leur territoire.

Et sous un Ron Paul, ce serait peut-être le moment d'en profiter. Il y aurait peut-être moins de bon-hommes armés qui viendraient imposer à ces États les lois de l'État fédéral..

[Lassie]

Ce n'est pas pour demain !

[Invité Arn0]

Le président des États-Unis peut faire ses propres lois sans passer par le Congrès et le Sénat.

En signant des executive orders ("Strike of the pen, law of the land")..

C'est anticonstitutionnel, donc je ne sais pas si Ron Paul serait tout de même tenté de le faire, surtout qu'il dénonce cette pratique assez souvent.

Autrement il y a les États.

Ils peuvent rendre nulle et non avenue (null and void) toute loi fédérale anticonstitutionnelle sur leur territoire.

Et sous un Ron Paul, ce serait peut-être le moment d'en profiter. Il y aurait peut-être moins de bon-hommes armés qui viendraient imposer à ces États les lois de l'État fédéral..

N'importe quoi.

[Kevinz]

N'importe quoi.

Je suis un peu peiné, j'aurais préféré un:

[Non]

Une chose est certaine : même si Ron Paul venait à être élu (ce qui est, selon moi, hautement improbable), le pays ne deviendrait pas "paulien" du jour au lendemain. C'est ce qu'explique d'ailleurs le principal intéressé (les passages en gras sont de moi) :

My Plan for a Freedom President (How I would put the Constitution back in the Oval Office)*

by Rep. Ron Paul, MD

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.

Now, this need for a transition period does not apply to all types of welfare. For example, I would have no problem defunding corporate welfare programs, such as the Export-Import Bank or the TARP bank bailouts, right away. I find it difficult to muster much sympathy for the CEO’s of Lockheed Martin and Goldman Sachs.

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.

Yet a pro-freedom president and his legislative allies could make tremendous progress simply by changing the terms of the negotiations that go on in Washington regarding the size and scope of government. Today, negotiations over legislation tend to occur between those who want a 100 percent increase in federal spending and those who want a 50 percent increase. Their compromise is a 75 percent increase. With a president serious about following the Constitution, backed by a substantial block of sympathetic representatives in Congress, negotiations on outlays would be between those who want to keep funding the government programs and those who want to eliminate them outright―thus a compromise would be a 50 percent decrease in spending!

While a president who strictly adheres to the Constitution would need the consent of Congress for very large changes in the size of government, such as shutting down cabinet departments, he could use his constitutional authority as head of the executive branch and as commander in chief to take several significant steps toward liberty on his own. The area where the modern chief executive has greatest ability to act unilaterally is in foreign affairs. Unfortunately, Congress has abdicated its constitutional authority to declare wars, instead passing vague “authorization of force” bills that allow the president to send any number of troops to almost any part of the world. The legislature does not even effectively use its power of the purse to rein in the executive. Instead, Congress serves as little more than a rubber stamp for the president’s requests.

If the president has the power to order U.S. forces into combat on nothing more than his own say-so, then it stands to reason he can order troops home. Therefore, on the first day in office, a constitutionalist can begin the orderly withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq and Afghanistan. He can also begin withdrawing troops from other areas of the world. The United States has over 300,000 troops stationed in more than 146 countries. Most if not all of these deployments bear little or no relationship to preserving the safety of the American people. For example, over 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the U.S. still maintains troops in Germany.

Domestically, the president can use his authority to set policies and procedures for the federal bureaucracy to restore respect for the Constitution and individual liberty. For example, today manufacturers of dietary supplements are subject to prosecution by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or Federal Trade Commission (FTC) if they make even truthful statements about the health benefits of their products without going through the costly and time-consuming procedures required to gain government approval for their claims. A president can put an end to this simply by ordering the FDA and FTC not to pursue these types of cases unless they have clear evidence that the manufacturer’s clams are not true. Similarly, the president could order the bureaucracy to stop prosecuting consumers who wish to sell raw milk across state lines.

A crucial policy that a president could enact to bring speedy improvements to government is ordering the bureaucracy to respect the 10th Amendment and refrain from undermining state laws. We have already seen a little renewed federalism with the current administration’s policy of not prosecuting marijuana users when their use of the drug is consistent with state medical-marijuana laws. A constitutionalist administration would also defer to state laws refusing compliance with the REAL ID act and denying federal authority over interstate gun transactions. None of these actions repeals a federal law; they all simply recognize a state’s primary authority, as protected by the 10th amendment, to set policy in these areas.

In fact, none of the measures I have discussed so far involves repealing any written law. They can be accomplished simply by a president exercising his legitimate authority to set priorities for the executive branch. And another important step he can take toward restoring the balance of powers the Founders intended is repealing unconstitutional executive orders issued by his predecessors.

Executive orders are a useful management tool for the president, who must exercise control over the enormous federal bureaucracy. However, in recent years executive orders have been used by presidents to create new federal laws without the consent of Congress. As President Clinton’s adviser Paul Begala infamously said, “stroke of the pen, law of the land, pretty cool.” No, it is not “pretty cool,” and a conscientious president could go a long way toward getting us back to the Constitution’s division of powers by ordering his counsel or attorney general to comb through recent executive orders so the president can annul those that exceed the authority of his office. If the President believed a particular Executive Order made a valid change in the law, then he should work with Congress to pass legislation making that change.

Only Congress can directly abolish government departments, but the president could use his managerial powers to shrink the federal bureaucracy by refusing to fill vacancies created by retirements or resignations. This would dramatically reduce the number of federal officials wasting our money and taking our liberties. One test to determine if a vacant job needs to be filled is the “essential employees test.” Whenever D.C. has a severe snowstorm, the federal government orders all “non-essential” federal personal to stay home. If someone is classified as non-essential for snow-day purposes, the country can probably survive if that position is not filled when the jobholder quits or retires. A constitutionalist president should make every day in D.C. like a snow day!

A president could also enhance the liberties and security of the American people by ordering federal agencies to stop snooping on citizens when there is no evidence that those who are being spied on have committed a crime. Instead, the president should order agencies to refocus on the legitimate responsibilities of the federal government, such as border security. He should also order the Transportation Security Administration to stop strip-searching grandmothers and putting toddlers on the no-fly list. The way to keep Americans safe is to focus on real threats and ensure that someone whose own father warns U.S. officials he’s a potential terrorist is not allowed to board a Christmas Eve flight to Detroit with a one-way ticket.

"'A crucial policy that a president could enact to bring speedy improvements to government is ordering the bureaucracy to respect the 10th Amendment and refrain from undermining state laws."

Perhaps the most efficient step a president could take to enhance travel security is to remove the federal roadblocks that have frustrated attempts to arm pilots. Congress created provisions to do just that in response to the attacks of September 11, 2001. However, the processes for getting a federal firearms license are extremely cumbersome, and as a result very few pilots have gotten their licenses. A constitutionalist in the Oval Office would want to revise those regulations to make it as easy as possible for pilots to get approval to carry firearms on their planes.

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:

*

Reduce overall federal spending

*

Prioritize cuts in oversize expenditures, especially the military

*

Prioritize cuts in corporate welfare

*

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

*

Provide for reduction in federal bureaucracy and lay out a plan to return responsibility for education to the states

*

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.”

Unconstitutional government spending, after all, is doubly an evil: it not only means picking the taxpayer’s pocket, it also means subverting the system of limited and divided government that the Founders created. Just look at how federal spending has corrupted American education.

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.

The classroom is not the only place the federal government does not belong. We also need to reverse the nationalization of local police. Federal grants have encouraged the militarization of law enforcement, which has led to great damage to civil liberties. Like education, law enforcement is inherently a local function, and ending programs such as the Byrne Grants is essential not just to reducing federal spending but also to restoring Americans’ rights.

Obviously, a president concerned with restoring constitutional government and fiscal responsibility would need to address the unstable entitlement situation, possibly the one area of government activity even more difficult to address than education. Yet it is simply unfair to continue to force young people to participate in a compulsory retirement program when they could do a much better job of preparing for their own retirements. What is more, the government cannot afford the long-term expenses of entitlements, even if we were to reduce all other unconstitutional foreign and domestic programs.

As I mentioned in the introduction to this article, it would be wrong simply to cut these programs and throw those who are dependent on them “into the streets.” After all, the current recipients of these programs have come to rely on them, and many are in a situation where they cannot provide for themselves without government assistance. The thought of people losing the ability to obtain necessities for them because they were misled into depending on a government safety net that has been yanked away from them should trouble all of us. However, the simple fact is that if the government does not stop spending money on welfare and warfare, America may soon face an economic crisis that could lead to people being thrown into the street.

Therefore, a transition away from the existing entitlement scheme is needed. This is why a constitutionalist president should propose devoting half of the savings from the cuts in wars and other foreign spending, corporate welfare, and unnecessary and unconstitutional bureaucracies to shoring up Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid and providing enough money to finance government’s obligations to those who are already stuck in the system and cannot make alternative provisions. This re-routing of spending would allow payroll taxes to be slashed. The eventual goal would be to move to a completely voluntary system where people only pay payroll taxes into Social Security and Medicare if they choose to participate in those programs. Americans who do not want to participate would be free not to do so, but they would forgo any claim to Social Security or Medicare benefits after retirement.

Some people raise concerns that talk of transitions is an excuse for indefinitely putting off the end of the welfare state. I understand those concerns, which is why a transition plan must lay out a clear timetable for paying down the debt, eliminating unconstitutional bureaucracies, and setting a firm date for when young people can at last opt out of the entitlement programs.

A final area that should be front and center in a constitutionalist’s agenda is monetary policy. The Founders obviously did not intend for the president to have much influence over the nation’s money―in fact, they never intended any part of the federal government to operate monetary policy as it defined now. However, today a president could play an important role in restoring stability to monetary policy and the value of the dollar. To start, by fighting for serious reductions in spending, a constitutionalist administration would remove one of the major justifications for the Federal Reserve’s inflationary policies, the need to monetize government debt.

There are additional steps a pro-freedom president should pursue in his first term to restore sound monetary policy. He should ask Congress to pass two pieces of legislation I have introduced in the 110th Congress. The first is the Audit the Fed bill, which would allow the American people to learn just how the Federal Reserve has been conducting monetary policy. The other is the Free Competition in Currency Act, which repeals legal tender laws and all taxes on gold and silver. This would introduce competition in currency and put a check on the Federal Reserve by ensuring that people have alternatives to government-produced fiat money.

All of these measures will take a lot of work―a lot more than any one person, even the president of the United States, can accomplish by himself. In order to restore the country to the kind of government the Founders meant for us to have, a constitutionalist president would need the support of an active liberty movement. Freedom activists must be ready to pressure wavering legislators to stand up to the special interests and stay the course toward freedom. Thus, when the day comes when someone who shares our beliefs sits in the Oval Office, groups like Young Americans for Liberty and Campaign for Liberty will still have a vital role to play. No matter how many pro-freedom politicians we elect to office, the only way to guarantee constitutional government is through an educated and activist public devoted to the ideals of the liberty.

http://www.quebecoislibre.org/10/100315-2.htm

[Nick de Cusa]

Rand Paul a l'air bien parti pour battre le sortant à la primaire républicaine de l'élection du sénateur du Kentucky.

Pour parer à cette menace, la BBC nous informe qu'il a un père très riche.

Argh, les chiens. Ils l'ont changé. Maintenant ça donne ça :

…

Mr Paul is leading in the polls. He has been able to spend liberally on his campaign thanks in part to the connections of his father, the Texas congressman and one-time presidential candidate, Ron Paul.

…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8684618.stm

[le dernier dino]

…

Mr Paul is leading in the polls. He has been able to spend liberally on his campaign thanks in part to the connections of his father, the Texas congressman and one-time presidential candidate, Ron Paul.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8684618.stm

Dans un sens ils ont quand même raison de dire que Rand a profité des réseaux de petits donateurs de son père…et c'est d'ailleurs bien la moindre des choses quand on sait que son adversaire Grayson a financé sa campagne auprès des gros donateurs habituels de l'establishment républicain à NY et Washington.

[Lassie]

C'est peut être une tare d'être riche en Angleterre mais pas aux USA. Ça ne devrait pas trop le pénaliser.

[Kevinz]

Rand Paul a l'air bien parti pour battre le sortant à la primaire républicaine de l'élection du sénateur du Kentucky.

Rand Paul wins:

http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/KY…en/summary.html

[Nick de Cusa]

Yeah.

Maintenant pourvu qu'il gagne l'élection.

[Lassie]

Voilà qui est fait.

J'ai vu qu'il a été endorse par Palin et le père de la Flat Tax c'est vrai ?

[h16]

google.

[le dernier dino]

Première phrase de son speech de victoire: "I've got a message, a message from the Tea Parties, We've come to take our goverment back!"

[G7H+]

Bon article traitant de la nomination de Rand Paul dans Le Figaro. Tout arrive.

Dans le Kentucky, Rand Paul, fils de l'ex-candidat à l'investiture républicaine lors de la dernière présidentielle Ron Paul, a remporté la primaire qui devait désigner le candidat conservateur aux élections de mi-mandat de novembre prochain, avec près de 59% des voix. Pour obtenir cette large majorité, il a bénéficié du soutien du Tea Party, un mouvement dont se réclame notamment l'ex-candidate à la vice-présidence Sarah Palin. Celui-ci rassemble divers groupes conservateurs qui protestent contre les dépenses, les impôts et l'élargissement du domaine de compétence du gouvernement fédéral. Le Tea party a pris de l'ampleur fin 2009 en se mobilisant contre la réforme du système de santé soutenue par le président Barack Obama. Depuis, ce courant, en plein essor, inquiète les républicains car il les accuse de collusion avec les démocrates et les juge trop centristes.

Source : http://www.lefigaro.fr/international/2010/…u-tea-party.php

[José]

Mid-term primaries

Why Republicans should worry

A good week for tea-partiers, bad for turncoats and incumbents, better than it might have been for the Democrats

FOR months now the Democrats have braced for a drubbing in November’s forthcoming mid-term elections for Congress. With the economy in the doldrums and Barack Obama’s approval ratings languishing in the high 40s, big Republican gains have looked inevitable—big enough, perhaps, to wrest control of the House of Representatives from the Democrats.

After a week of elections across the country, that still remains the case. But none of the results from this week’s “Super Tuesday”—on May 18th internal party primaries took place in Arkansas, Kentucky, Oregon and Pennsylvania, and a special election was held in western Pennsylvania—has made the outlook for the Democrats much bleaker than it did before. If anything, they have grounds for at least some cheer. It is the Republicans who must now face up to a potential problem.

It is true that the most famous scalp to fall on Tuesday night was that of Senator Arlen Specter, who has spent 30 years in the Senate (see article). For a brief period Mr Specter gave Mr Obama his supermajority in the upper chamber. He also cast the deciding vote on last year’s stimulus bill. But his defeat by Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania’s Democratic primary cannot be construed as a defeat for the party itself. After all, Mr Specter’s chief handicap was that he was a Republican until crossing the aisle just over a year ago. The Democrats’ national leadership tried to save him. But since turncoats are unpopular, it is by no means certain that Mr Sestak, an impressive congressman and former naval officer, will fare worse against the Republican Patrick Toomey in November.

The Democrats can meanwhile draw encouragement from the only fight on Tuesday that took place between parties rather than within them. Their man won the special election to fill the House seat left vacant in Pennsylvania’s 12th congressional district by the death in February of John Murtha, a long-serving Democrat. Having worked for Mr Murtha, Tuesday’s victor, Mark Critz, held out the promise of continuing his boss’s legendary knack of delivering Washington pork to the Pennsylvania rustbelt. The Republicans had sought to counter Mr Critz by turning the race into a referendum on the Obama administration. At times during the campaign the polls suggested they were close to success. In the end, however, Mr Critz beat the Republicans’ Tim Burns, a self-made local millionaire, by a respectable margin of 53% to 45%.

A defeat there would have been wretched for the Democrats. White working-class districts such as Pennsylvania’s 12th no longer account for more than about a quarter of the party’s seats in Congress. But holding on to them is essential if the party is to remain in power. Otherwise, says Bill Galston, a former party strategist and now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, “the Sisyphean task of constructing a Democratic majority will come to its Sisyphean end—with the rock rolling back down the hill.” But whether Mr Critz’s success can be repeated in his own or similar districts in November remains an open question. It is telling that he had to be careful in his campaign to distance himself from Mr Obama, disavow the “liberal” label and insist that if he had been in Congress at the time he would have opposed health reform, the president’s foremost domestic initiative.

In Arkansas the primaries brought less comfort to the Democrats’ national leadership. In a three-way race Blanche Lincoln, a Democratic centrist and sitting senator, failed to collect enough votes to avoid having to confront her main challenger, the state’s lieutenant-governor, Bill Halter, in a run-off next month. Senator Lincoln had antagonised the unions by wavering on health reform and opposing the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill that would help workers to unionise firms without a secret ballot. Her reputation as a Washington insider told against her at a time when Congress and the federal government are highly unpopular. But there are many parts of the country in which the Democrats will need to be able to run centrists like her if they are to do well in November.

It is the Republicans, however, who may worry most about the price they could pay in November for internal ideological splits. In Kentucky the retirement of the junior senator, Jim Bunning, produced a humdinger of a fight between the party establishment in the person of Trey Grayson, Kentucky’s secretary of state, and Rand Paul, an outsider and ophthalmologist with little previous experience in politics. Mr Grayson was handpicked for Mr Bunning’s seat by the state’s senior senator, Mitch McConnell, who happens also to be the Republican leader in the Senate. All Dr Paul had going for him was a famous father (the Texas libertarian, Ron Paul, who sought the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 and may do so again) and the support of the tea-party movement that has electrified Republican politics this year.

That proved more than enough. Being an outsider did not stop Dr Paul from routing Mr Grayson by 23 points. And this was only the latest of a string of successes for candidates supported by the tea-partiers. Earlier this month, in another stunning upset, Republicans in Utah dumped Bob Bennett, a three-term sitting senator whose solid conservative credentials were apparently no longer good enough to satisfy the party’s local activists. And in Florida in April opposition from the tea-partiers prompted the Republican governor, Charlie Crist, to quit the party altogether. He now intends to run for the Senate in November as an independent.

The impact of the tea-partiers is a decidedly mixed blessing for the Republicans. On the one hand, the party benefits from the passion and dollars this widespread grassroots mutiny against big government is able to inject into local campaigns. On the other, they are in danger of pushing the Republicans well to the right of the mainstream. Dr Paul, like his father, is a genuine radical who believes in paring government down to the bone.

“The tea party is huge,” Dr Paul declared in his victory speech. It will certainly have a huge influence on the tactics of Republicans thinking of running for the party’s presidential nomination. But since only registered Republicans were allowed to vote in Kentucky’s closed primary, it is difficult to know how many other voters, even in Kentucky, will plump for a candidate who threatens to slash their entitlements and hankers after the gold standard.

With six months to go until the mid-terms, and with politics haunted by a powerful mood of anti-incumbency, plenty of political surprises no doubt remain in store. This week alone brought the resignation of Mark Souder, a Republican congressman from Indiana who had an affair with a staffer with whom he had recorded an appeal for sexual abstinence. Richard Blumenthal, the Democratic senatorial candidate for Connecticut, is in trouble for having conveyed the impression (unwittingly, says he) that he served in Vietnam, when in fact he had obtained several deferments. Such misdemeanours will do nothing to change the low opinion Americans have of their present lot of politicians.

http://www.economist.com/world/united-stat…e=hptextfeature

[Kevinz]

Mouif..

Ces deux derniers jours certains médias s'acharnent..

Normal il est raciste, forcément.

http://www.dailypaul.com/node/135337