PAUL: That subject really doesn't interest me a whole lot. But the question is, what are we going to do about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It should have been auctioned off right after the crash came. It would have been cleansed by now. It should have been sold. We know how the bubble came about. It was excessive credit, interest rates held too low, too long, the Federal Reserve responsible for that. The Community Reinvestment Act, which is Affirmative Action telling banks they have to make these risky loans. And at the same time, there was a line of credit which allowed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to, you know, make more money. And it was assumed that they would always be protected. I've talked a long time about cutting off that credit from the Fed. I was trying to prevent this stuff.
PAUL: The senator mentioned standing up for some of these nations, but he doesn't define it, but standing up for nations like this usually means that we impose ourselves, go and pick the dictators, undermine certain governments, also sending them a lot of money. It doesn't work. Most of the time, this backfires. They resent us. We can achieve what he wants in a much different way than us using the bully attitude that you will do it our way. This is not a benefit to us. Because you're talking about force.
SANTORUM: What I talked about is building strong national security relationships. No one's talking about force. Nobody's talking about going into Cuba or going into Venezuela.
PAUL: Well, I think free trade is the answer. Free trade is an answer to a lot of conflicts around the world, so I'm always promoting free trade. And you might add Cuba, too. I think we would be a lot better off trading with Cuba.
But as far as us having an obligation, a military or a financial obligation to go down and dictate to them what government they should have, I don't like that idea. I would try to set a standard here where countries would want to emulate us. Unfortunately, sometimes we slip up on our standards and we go around the world and we try to force ourselves on others. And yet, I believe with friendship and trade, you can have a lot of influence, and I strongly believe that it's time we have friendship and trade with Cuba.
PAUL: I don't think we should go to the moon. I think we maybe should send some politicians up there. In 1962 and studied aerospace medicine: actually had a daydream about maybe becoming the first physician to go into space. That didn't occur, but the amount of money we spend on space, the only part that I would vote for is for national defense purposes. Not to explore the moon and go to Mars. I love those ideas. But I also don't like the idea of building government business partnerships. It should be privatized, and the people who work in the industry, if you had that, there would be jobs in aerospace. And I just think that we don't need a new big program. Health care or something else deserves a lot more priority than going to the moon. Space technology should be followed up to some degree for national defense purposes, but not just for the fun of it or for science.
A: Well, sure, indirectly. They shouldn’t stimulate it by interfering in the market rate of interest. That’s where our basic problem comes from. And when you do that, you get into these problems, and then everybody wants to solve the problem by printing more money and spending more money and asking the Federal Reserve to, you know, lower interest rates. And that just makes the problem that much worse. The government does have a responsibility: to lower taxes, get rid of regulations, and devise a monetary policy that makes some sense. But to continue to say that we just appropriate more money, which is more deficit, and then expect us either to borrow it or expect the Federal Reserve to monetize it, it makes our problems worse.
And then there’s never been a war fought without inflation and destruction and devaluation of a currency. And this is what we’re doing today to ourselves, is we’re literally spending ourselves into oblivion.
But nobody here is willing to even suggest that we cut something overseas. But we have to. We don’t need to cut anything here at home. I’d like to see things frozen. I’d like to see massive tax cuts. But we need deregulation.
So this is the kind of thing we need. We need the government out of the way, but it should have sound money, low taxes, less regulations, and a sensible policy where we’re not wasting our money overseas.
A: Yes, but not overnight. As a matter of fact, my program’s the only one that is going to be able to take care of the elderly. I’d like to get the young people out of it, just the younger generation, because there’s no money there, and they’re going to have to pay 50 years and they’re not going to get anything. I’d take care of all the elderly, all those who are dependent, but I would save the money from this wild spending overseas.
A: It was a very bad idea, and it wasn’t worth it. The al Qaeda wasn’t there then; they’re there now. There were no weapons of mass destruction. Had nothing to do with 9/11. There was no aggression. This decision on policy was made in 1998 because they called for the removal of Saddam Hussein. It wasn’t worth it, and it’s a sad story because we started that war and we should never be a country that starts war needlessly.
A: The first thing we have to do is get the federal government out of it. We don’t need a federal abortion police. That’s the last thing that we need. There has to be a criminal penalty for the person that’s committing that crime. And I think that is the abortionist. As for the punishment, I don’t think that should be up to the president to decide.
A: I would like to change Washington, and we could by cutting three programs, such as the Department of Education-- Ronald Reagan used to talk about that--Department of Energy, Department of Homeland Security is the biggest bureaucracy we ever had. And besides, what we can do is we can have a stronger national defense by changing our foreign policy.
A: I have never voted for a tax increase; never will. But the tax issue is only one-half of it. You can easily pledge not to raise taxes, but you have to cut spending.
That’s where the crisis [in Social Security] is coming. You’re going to go up with all these cost of living increases but you’ll never keep up with the cost of living because the dollar’s going down, the cost of living is going up.
Our dollar today is worth 4 cents compared to the dollar of 1913, when the Federal Reserve took charge of it. And if you don’t deal with the dollar there will be no retirement for anybody. We’re going to have chaos.
And that is why you have to cut spending. That’s why we need a new foreign policy. We need to tie it to people over here in this country. That’s the only way we can solve the problem.
A: If you believe in federalism, it’s better that we allow these things to be left to the state. My personal belief is that marriage is a religious ceremony. And it should be dealt with religiously. The [government] really shouldn’t be involved. The government got involved mostly for health reasons 100 years or so ago. But this should be a religious matter. All voluntary associations, whether they’re economic or social, should be protected by the law. But to amend the Constitution is totally unnecessary to define something that’s already in the dictionary. We do know what marriage is about. We don’t need a new definition or argue over a definition and have an Amendment. To me, it just seems so unnecessary to do that. There’s no need for the federal government to be involved in this.
A: Well, we’ve had managed care, now, for about 35 years. It’s not working, and nobody’s happy with it. The doctors aren’t happy. The patients aren’t happy. Nobody seems to be happy--except the corporations, the drug companies and the HMOs.
A: It’s a mess. And it proves that the government is not very good at central economic planning, even for retirement. The money was taken from the people with good intention. We should do our best to return it to those that have taken it. But we need to allow the young people to just flat out get out of the system. Because, if you have the government managing these accounts, it’s not going to work.
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The above quotations are from State of Florida Politicians: Archives.
Click here for other excerpts from State of Florida Politicians: Archives. Click here for other excerpts by Ron Paul. Click here for a profile of Ron Paul.
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