I would love to see self-styled “libertarian” super-patriot Ron Paul explain which article of the Constitution authorizes appropriating public money for:
- antibiotic testing of seafood in his hometown.
- “personalized medicine in asthma” for the “disadvantaged” of his hometown.
- shore protection measures for his home county.
- cancer center expansion at his county hospital.
- a Cedar bayou created in his home county.
- the “operation” of a dozen other bayous, swamps, lakes, creeks and waterways in his constituency.
- converting a clipper ship to a classroom for his hometown university.
- building new jetties on his local river.
- a shipping channel between his hometown and Corpus Christi Texas.
- “transportation enhancements” for a local theater.
- buying new buses (local and “regional”) for his hometown.
- a replacement rail bridge in his hometown.
- new trolleys in his hometown.
- funding a scholarship in the name of a tax-exempt religious entity.
- “vanadium safety readiness” training for a private research facility in his hometown.
- distance education courses offered through his local university.
- research into shrimp fishing in his hometown.
- marketing of “Wild American Shrimp”
Some other bloggers have praised Ron Paul for even disclosing these earmarks, when so few of his colleagues did likewise. I completely disagree. Ron Paul is unique in his vociferous attacks on pork spending in America, and is thus deserving of an elevated level of scrutiny in these regards.
He goes so far as to call the very same budget that provides for his above earmarks a monument to irresponsibility and profligacy. In the linked article he says:
My message to my colleagues is simple: If you claim to support smaller government, don’t introduce budgets that increase spending over the previous year. Can any fiscal conservative in Congress honestly believe that overall federal spending cannot be cut 25%? We could cut spending by two-thirds and still have a federal government as large as it was in 1990.
Of course, being the slimy politician he is (as opposed to the “libertarian” freedom fighter he pretends to be to dupe mouth-breathing Randites into talking him up on the internet), his most recent “Texas Straight Talk” column slyly defends his abuses of earmarks by saying:
Eliminating earmarks designated by Members of Congress would simply transfer the funding decision process to federal bureaucrats rather then elected representatives. In an already flawed system, earmarks can at least allow residents of Congressional districts to have a greater role in allocating federal funds - their tax dollars - than if the money is allocated behind locked doors by bureaucrats. So we can be critical of the abuses in the current system but we shouldn’t lose sight of how some reforms may not actually make the system much better.
So, let me see if I have this straight: The federal budget is a travesty because it is full of pork spending, but since it already is full of it, I might as well stick my hand in before someone else does. Nice ethics Mr. Paul.
Of course, this type of hypocrisy from Mr. Paul is subsidiary to the grand hypocrisy of active participation in a democratic government, which he holds to be illegitimate. For all the logic-challenged out there,the “libertarian” position is essentially anti-democratic. (see Hudson:1996 and Dahl:1989)
Tags: america, budget, earmarks, politics, Ron Paul
These are the ramblings of 
He duly submits these earmarks as requested by his constituents. When the budget comes up for vote, he votes against it. Get your facts straight.
What facts, pray tell, have I gotten wrong? Read the second quote from Paul again.
The fact that he votes against the earmarks. Of course, if you included that fact you wouldn’t have a story, would you? Or rather, you would have precisely the opposite story you wish to have.
No, I would have the same “story”. The difference between your view of the situation and mine is that I don’t really see how voting against a bill you know will absolutely pass (yearly budgets in general, not a specific one) makes him no longer responsible for earmarks.
My favorite part is the link purportedly showing that Paul doesn’t believe in democracy, when in fact he says that the Founders didn’t believe in it. Well, is that even debatable, for heaven’s sake? Has this blogger ever read anything the framers wrote on democracy? Yet he’ll spend his time condemning the one non-hack in the whole presidential race. Unbelievable.
Umm, no. He, like all “libertarians”, claim to be the heirs of the founders, and by claiming “liberty” as higher than “democracy”, even through their mouths, he is, by definition anti-democratic.
The assertion that the founding fathers were overwhelmingly in favor of a republican (interests of the polity), rather than democratic (wishes of the polity), government is well-based, going so far as to “guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government….” What is lacking in the unthinking assumption of the mantle of those “founding fathers” is whether a) they did so for any sound reason, or because it best fit their personal interests and b) how exactly does participation in a representative democracy (acting as to interests, not wishes) fit with the libertarian ideals espoused by Paul, which was just a flippant side note to the nice pile of pork Paul has stuck in the budget he calls irresponsible and profligate…
He adds earmarks to bills because everyone else does, and Paul thinks its only just that the people he represents get some of their tax dollars back as well. But, as mentioned, he always votes against the bill. If he didn’t add the earmarks, his constituents would be paying for the rest of the nation’s earmarks, clearly a less-fair scenario.
Except when he votes against cutting it you mean…
The important question is whether or not his one vote on one bill somehow frees him from the moral precepts he espouses. Simply saying that “since the money is there I might as well grab as much as possible for the folks back home” seems awfully hard to align with his rhetoric, until one remembers that as a politician, his main job is staying in office.
I wish people would debate Ron Paul’s explicitly stated policies. Ron Paul is a consistent, honest, and principled politician with a coherent political vision. Ron Paul has written countless articles, and is suggesting a fundamental political change. Nevertheless, we see these misinformed smear jobs, which only serve to discourage real political debate. Attack the message not the messenger.
Ron Paul has my vote, because of his political vision.
How much more explicitly would you like them stated than direct quotes, linked to context, from Paul himself? I have read most of his articles, and can hardly be called misinformed. Ron Paul like pork earmarks because they keep him in office, like any other politician. Ron Paul has your vote because you think he will make you richer, just like any other voter. Stop playing armchair pseudo-anarchist and grow up.
“The important question is whether or not his one vote on one bill somehow frees him from the moral precepts he espouses.”
Yes, of course it does. You aren’t morally responsible for a budget you vote against. Period. The rest of the budgetary process isn’t relevant. It’s like signing on as a co-sponsor of a non-budgetary bill, but then voting against the bill. Your earlier action is undone by your later vote.
The Congress makes legislation by voting. Not by any of the procedures that come before a vote. If you vote against a particular piece of legislation, it’s not yours.
So, let me get this straight:
If I am a Representative and I successfully submit dozens of requests for Federal monies to be spent in my constituency to various budgetary committees, all I have to do in order to be seen as opposed to those spending measures, in specific, is vote against the budget that results?
That argument seems to rest on the idea that Mr. Paul wishes these earmarking requests to fail. The truth however, is the same for an politician, not just Mr. Paul — earmarks are how you garner support back home. Without earmarked funds coming into your constituency, you are not likely to be reelected.
It seems more reasonable and logical that the scenario is thus:
I pass on earmarks from my constituents, hoping they will receive the funds that will increase voter support for me in my constituency. I know that the budget will pass eventually regardless of my vote, and that it will contain those earmarks. I know also that it will pass regardless of my vote on it, so I am free to vote against it. In this way, I get to have my cake and eat it too.
1) I have voters who will support me because they think I bring home the Federal bacon.
2) I have voters who support me because they think I am opposed to the budget process that allows 1.
And by the way, Ron Paul doesn’t have my vote because he will make me richer.
If you allowed me to will into law any sections of the party platform of the LPA at my option, I wouldn’t care if my personal taxes and my personal obligations to the regulatory state remained exactly the same. I would gladly eat the grenade to destroy the modern state.
Jon,
This is pathetic. I read the links you posted, and the story you tried to weave around them, and it just won’t jell. You are telling the literal truth about the facts you choose to present, but you are implying a context that just isn’t there.
I call bull$#!+.
These are a series of requests to the various subcommittees; asking them to please not forget this entity or that entity. In one case, a Sheriff’s Dept. knew in advance the amount they would need.
Oooh! $25,000.00! My goodness that’s a meaty chunk of budgetary scandal. Oh! and look! He asked that as long as millions of dollars were being spent in the name of health care, could someone please remember to give asthma medication to poor children. I guess he isn’t the mean, heartless, scrooge-like, social Darwinist that people make him out to be.
This isn’t a bunch of amendments that would automatically become law should this bill be passed. Each subcommittee will be making the actual decisions on whether to include funding for any of these. From my perusal they mostly seem to be public entities (except maybe the fish hatchery study, that one seems a bit… well, you know - fishy!)
And you can’t even say that a subcommittee would be likely to approve these requests in order to guarantee Ron Paul’s vote on the final spending bill. (not even with a “nudge, nudge, wink, wink”)
Every member of Congress knows full well what Ron Paul’s vote on this bill will be. Same as it is on just about every other spending bill:
NO!
(yeah, yeah, I tried to read the text of that bill you pointed to, where you say that Ron Paul voted against cutting expenditures, and there is a whole lot of other C124P in it that makes me think there is something buried in that mess that explains Ron Paul’s vote. That bill was so long, I should hope it would be voted down simply on the basis that no one could possibly read it all and understand it. One thing I feel we must do is make Congress “Read the Bills” before they vote on them.)
Anyway, if the subcommittee felt that these requests were bad uses of the public’s money, then the subcommittee would certainly be free to ignore them. If the subcommittee felt that these entities needed the funding that was being requested, then it would be up to the subcommittee to approve it, and in what amount.
I suppose, if you want to play ultra-pure-Libertarian-Übermensch fantasy politics, then you could say Ron Paul is a forked-tongued, thrice-damned, flaming, hypocrit. But Ron Paul isn’t running for the nomination of the ultra-pure-Libertarian-Übermensch party.
Ron Paul is running for the nomination of the Republican party. And as Republican politicians go, this is as pure as driven snow on an Antarctic glacier. Oh sure, you can find trace amounts of pollutants anywhere if you look hard enough and squint, but I’ll take it in a heart-beat over that sterilized, industrial, over-processed $#!+ that flows from the taps in New York City.
Sheesh! What a bunch of nothing. I am so glad that this is the worst you can come up with. It really enforces my overall good impression of Dr. Paul’s honesty and integrity.
And I will stack Dr. Pauls’ honesty and integrity, earmarks and shady connections against Frudy McRompson’s any day of the week. No matter how bad you say Ron Paul’s faults are, the others are far, far worse.
Laters
I didn’t say that Paul was worse than any other politician, I said that he was deserving of special scrutiny in regards to budgetary matters since he is so outspoken (and vociferously so) about those matters.
As to context, read my responses to some of the other comments in this thread. There is ample room for a difference of opinion here, but I hold that the explanation I give for his use of earmarks is simpler and more close to the truth of the situation than those given by Mr. Paul himself, nothing more.
He is a politician, first and foremost, and as such, wishes to be reelected. One of the ways he does this by passing on earmarks from his constituency to be (hopefully) included in the budget. He then votes against the resulting budget, as a matter of course, knowing that it will be passed regardless of his dissension, with his constituents earmarks funded.
Yes, I take a cynical view of the process, and of all those involved in it. The only difference between me and one of Mr. Paul’s supporters in this respect is, to paraphrase the noted atheist, I simply trust one less politician than you do.
so, when the congress introduces a bill to tax the hell out of the nation, and every congressman tries to bring some of the tax money back to his district, and when ron paul attempts to give back his district it’s tax dollars, and votes against the whole bill, he is a hypocrite? Right. He has said himself on television that he opposes federal funding consistantly, but makes sure his tax payers get their money back if it happens. This is exactly what i would do in his position, regardless of the impact on my popularity! For god’s sake, to not give the money back to my district would be to allow the rest of the nation to steal it from my district!
So let me me get this straight: voters from the 14th Congressional district are allowed to pay the federal income tax; they’re just not allowed to ask to see it come back through federal appropriations?