Ron Paul, Dr.
Articles by this author:
REIMPORTATION OF FDA-APPROVED PHARMACEUTICALS
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, due to a personal matter I was unable to be present for roll-call votes last week. I particularly regret not being in attendance for the votes on the amendments to the Agriculture Appropriations bills offered by the gentleman from Vermont (Roll Call no. 216) and the gentleman from Minnesota (Roll Call no. 217) dealing with the reimportation of FDA-approved pharmaceuticals. I would have enthusiastically supported both amendments had I been able to be here last week and I was quite disappointed to see the gentleman from Vermont’s amendment rejected and pleased to see the gentleman from Minnesota’s amendment accepted by this body…
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Do Tax Cuts Cost the Government Money?
You don’t cost the government money, the government cost you money!
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Your Taxes Subsidize China
Each year the people of the United States write a check to subsidize China, one of the most brutal, anti-American regimes in the world. Lately it has been in vogue for everyone in Washington to eagerly denounce the egregious abuses of the Chinese people at the hands of their communist dictators. Yet no one in our federal government has been willing to take China on in any meaningful way.
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The Threat of Rising Property Taxes
In recent weeks I’ve written about how inflation is alive and well, especially when it comes to the cost of housing, energy, gas, and education. But perhaps the most worrisome type of inflation comes in the form of steadily rising property taxes.
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A New Declaration
On the fourth day of July, in 1776, a small group of men, representing 13 colonies in the far-off Americas, boldly told the most powerful nation on earth that they were free.
They declared, in terms that still are radical today, that all men are created equal, and endowed with certain inalienable rights that government neither grants nor can take away.
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Dietary Supplements and Health Freedom
Millions of Americans take dietary supplements every day, and the numbers are growing as the Baby Boom generation ages. More and more Americans understandably are frustrated with our government-controlled health care system. They have concluded that vitamins, minerals, and other supplements might help them stay healthy and less dependent on the system. They use supplements because they can buy them freely at stores and research them freely on the internet, without government interference in the form of doctors, prescriptions, HMOs, and licenses. In other words, they use supplements because they are largely free to make their own choices, in stark contrast to the conventional medical system.
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Free Market Medicine
Last week the congressional Joint Economic committee on which I serve held a hearing featuring two courageous medical doctors. I had the pleasure of meeting with one of the witnesses, Dr. Robert Berry, who opened a low-cost health clinic in rural Tennessee. His clinic does not accept insurance, Medicare, or Medicaid, which allows Dr. Berry to treat patients without interference from third-party government bureaucrats or HMO administrators. In other words, Dr. Berry practices medicine as most doctors did 40 years ago, when patients paid cash for ordinary services and had inexpensive catastrophic insurance for serious injuries or illnesses. As a result, Dr. Berry and his patients decide for themselves what treatment is appropriate.
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On Introduction of the Pharmaceutical Freedom Act of 2000
Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce the Pharmaceutical Freedom Act of 2000. This legislation ensures that millions of Americans, including seniors, have access to affordable pharmaceutical products. My bill makes pharmaceuticals more affordable to seniors by reducing their taxes. It also removes needless government barriers to importing pharmaceuticals and it protects Internet pharmacies, which are making affordable prescription drugs available to millions of Americans, from being strangled by federal regulation…
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Medical costs can be cut with freedom
An often-made claim is that it is expensive to be sick in America.
That may be true, though no more so than any of the more socialist systems in the world perceived as “inexpensive” by those desiring similar government programs here. In those nations, the cost is hidden in individual tax-rates in excess of fifty percent, so the extremely high costs for care are still being paid by the patient, they just don’t write the check to the doctor, they write it to the tax collector.
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Free Speech and Dietary Supplements
Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce the Health Freedom Protection Act. This bill restores the First Amendment rights of consumers to receive truthful information regarding the benefits of foods and dietary supplements by codifying the First Amendment standards used by federal courts to strike down the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) efforts to censor truthful health claims. The Health Freedom Protection Act also stops the Federal Trade Commissions (FTC) from censoring truthful health care claims…
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The Price of Delaying the Inevitable in Iraq
Washington politicians remain frozen in their unwillingness to change our policy in Iraq, fearful of the dire predictions that conditions can only get worse when we leave. They refuse to admit that the condition of foreign occupation is the key ingredient that unleashed the civil war now raging in Iraq and serves as a recruitment device for Al Qaida. It’s time for a change in our foreign policy.
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Fixing What’s Wrong With Iraq
With both objectives of the original authorization completely satisfied, what is the legal ground for our continued involvement in Iraq? Why has Congress not stepped up to the plate and revisited the original authorization?
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Statement Opposing the use of Military Force against Iraq
I must oppose this resolution, which regardless of what many have tried to claim will lead us into war with Iraq. This resolution is not a declaration of war, however, and that is an important point: this resolution transfers the Constitutionally-mandated Congressional authority to declare wars to the executive branch. This resolution tells the president that he alone has the authority to determine when, where, why, and how war will be declared. It merely asks the president to pay us a courtesy call a couple of days after the bombing starts to let us know what is going on. This is exactly what our Founding Fathers cautioned against when crafting our form of government: most had just left behind a monarchy where the power to declare war rested in one individual. It is this they most wished to avoid.
As James Madison wrote in 1798, “The Constitution supposes what the history of all governments demonstrates, that the executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it. It has, accordingly, with studied care, vested the question of war in the legislature.”
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Before we Bomb Iraq…
Let it be clearly understood- there is no authority to wage war against Iraq without Congress passing a Declaration of War. HJ RES 65, passed in the aftermath of 9/11, does not even suggest that this authority exists. A UN Resolution authorizing an invasion of Iraq, even if it were to come, cannot replace the legal process for the United States going to war as precisely defined in the Constitution. We must remember that a covert war is no more justifiable, and is even more reprehensible.
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Hypocrisy in the Middle East
A coherent foreign policy is based on the understanding that America is best served by not interfering in the deadly conflicts that define the Middle East. Yes, we need Middle Eastern oil, but we can reduce our need by exploring domestic sources. We should rid ourselves of the notion that we are at the mercy of the oil-producing countries- as the world’s largest oil consumer, their wealth depends on our business. We should stop the endless game of playing faction against faction, and recognize that buying allies doesn’t work. We should curtail the heavy militarization of the area by ending our disastrous foreign aid payments. We should stop propping up dictators and putting band-aids on festering problems. We should understand that our political and military involvement in the region creates far more problems that it solves. All Americans will benefit, both in terms of their safety and their pocketbooks, if we pursue a coherent, neutral foreign policy of non-interventionism, free trade, and self-determination in the Middle East.
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Empty Rhetoric for Veterans
It’s easy to talk about honoring veterans and their sacrifices, even while the federal government treats veterans badly. Congress wastes billions of dollars funding countless unconstitutional programs, but fails to provide adequately for the men and women who carry out the most important constitutional function: national defense.
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Ignoring Reality in Iraq
The reality is that current-day Iraq contains three distinct groups of people whom have been at odds with each other for generations. Pundits and politicians tell us that a civil war will erupt if the US military departs. Yet our insistence that Iraq remain one indivisible nation actually creates the conditions for civil war. Instead of an artificial, forced, nationalist unity between the Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds, we should allow each group to seek self-government and choose voluntarily whether they wish to associate with a central government. We cannot impose democracy in Iraq any more than we can erase hundreds of years of Iraqi history.
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Congress Goes AWOL
Congress is to blame for its craven failure to seriously debate, much less declare, war in Iraq. The Constitution squarely charges Congress with the duty to declare war, a weighty responsibility that our founders thought should rest with the body most directly responsible to the people. The president’s status as commander-in-chief grants him the power only to execute war, not to decide whether war is justified. This is not seriously debatable by anyone who honestly examines the Constitution and the Federalist papers.
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Arguments Against a War in Iraq
Mr. Speaker, allow me to offer another quote from Jefferson. Jefferson said: “No country perhaps was ever so thoroughly against war as ours. These dispositions pervade every description of its citizens, whether in or out of office. We love and we value peace, we know its blessings from experience.”
We need this sentiment renewed in this Congress in order to avoid a needless war that offers us nothing but trouble. Congress must deal with this serious matter of whether or not we go to war. I believe it would be a mistake with the information that is available to us today. I do not see any reason whatsoever to take young men and young women and send them 6,000 miles to attack a country that has not committed any aggression against this country. Many American now share my belief that it would be a serious mistake.
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Before We Bomb Baghdad
Congress should not allow any administration to take our nation to war without the consent of the people. I fear that we are about to embark on an undeclared, unconstitutional war in Iraq that is exceedingly unwise and fraught with unforeseen consequences. This war will have nothing to do with US national security or Iraqi aggression. It will, however, make us all less secure by antagonizing millions of Muslims who understand the necessity of our actions against Al-Queda, but who will object to an invasion of Iraq.
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Stop Taxing Social Security Benefits!
Since Social Security benefits are financed with tax dollars, taxing these benefits is yet another example of double taxation. Furthermore, “taxing” benefits paid by the government is merely an accounting trick, a shell game which allows members of Congress to reduce benefits by subterfuge. This allows Congress to continue using the Social Security trust fund as a means of financing other government programs, and masks the true size of the federal deficit.
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The Coming Entitlement Meltdown
When it comes to Social Security and Medicare, the federal government simply won’t be able to keep its promises in the future. That is the reality every American should get used to, despite the grand promises of Washington reformers. Our entitlement system can’t be reformed - it’s too late. And the Medicare prescription drug bill is the final nail in the coffin.
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Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2000
The abuse of the general welfare clause and the interstate commerce laws clause is precisely the reason our Federal Government no longer conforms to the constitutional dictates but, instead, is out of control in its growth and scope. H.R. 3660 thus endorses the entire process which has so often been condemned by limited government advocates when used by the authoritarians as they constructed the welfare State.
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Totalization is a Bad Idea
Those in favor of sending U.S. Social Security benefits to Mexican citizens argue that crushing poverty in Mexico demands some form of U.S. assistance to that country’s aged. While poverty in Mexico truly is deplorable and saddening, the fact remains that Congress has no constitutional authority to enact what is essentially another foreign aid program.
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Social Security: House of Cards
The Social Security crisis is a spending crisis. The program could be saved tomorrow if Congress simply would stop spending so much money, apply even 10% of the bloated federal budget to a real trust fund, and begin saving your contributions to earn simple interest. That this simple approach seems impossible speaks volumes about the inability of Congress to cut spending no matter what the circumstances.
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Introduction of the Social Security Preservation Act
The Social Security Preservation Act ensures that the government will keep its promises to America’s seniors that taxes collected for Social Security will be used for Social Security. When the government taxes Americans to fund Social Security, it promises the American people that the money will be there for them when they retire. Congress has a moral obligation to keep that promise.
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The Great Global Social Security Giveaway?
The proposed agreement is nothing more than a financial reward to those who have willingly and knowingly violated our own immigration laws. Talk about an incentive for illegal immigration! How many more would break the law to come to this country if promised U.S. government paychecks for life? Is creating a global welfare state on the back of the American taxpayer a good idea? The program also establishes a very disturbing precedent of U.S. foreign aid to individual citizens rather than to states.s
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Congress Must Work for Seniors
Seniors represent the fastest growing demographic group in our nation. More Americans are living longer, often for several decades after retirement. While many enjoy good health and financial security during their later years, millions have limited means. These seniors survived the Depression, fought World War II, and created the prosperity and freedom we enjoy today. Congress needs to honor our nation’s commitments to them.
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Reject the National ID Card
Those who are willing to allow the government to establish a Soviet-style internal passport system because they think it will make us safer are terribly mistaken. Subjecting every citizen to surveillance and “screening points” will actually make us less safe, not in the least because it will divert resources away from tracking and apprehending terrorists and deploy them against innocent Americans!
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Protecting integrity of Social Security
Restoring the integrity of the trust system is of critical importance. Billions of dollars are being diverted from their intended purposes, yet many in Washington chant the “save Social Security” mantra while taking more and more out of the fund.
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Rights of Taxpayers is Missing Element
Our founding fathers devised a system of governance that limited federal activity very narrowly. In doing so, they intended to keep issues such as embryonic stem cell research entirely out of Washington’s hands. They believed issues such as this should be tackled by free people acting freely in their churches and medical associations, and in the marketplace that would determine effective means of research.
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Pro-Life Action Must Originate from Principle
First, we must return to constitutional principles and proclaim them proudly. We must take a principled approach that recognizes both moral and political principles, and accepts the close relationship between them. Legislatively, we should focus our efforts on building support to overturn Roe v. Wade. Ideally this would be done in a fashion that allows states to again ban or regulate abortion. State legislatures have always had proper jurisdiction over issues like abortion and cloning; the pro-life movement should recognize that jurisdiction and not encroach upon it. The alternative is an outright federal ban on abortion, done properly via a constitutional amendment that does no violence to our way of government.
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No Federal Funding for Stem Cell Research
The question that should concern Congress today is: Does the US government have the constitutional authority to fund any form of stem cell research? The clear answer to that question is no. A proper constitutional position would reject federal funding for stem cell research, while allowing individual states and private citizens to decide whether to permit, ban, or fund this research. Therefore, I must vote against HR 810.
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The Partial Birth Abortion Ban
Abortion on demand is no doubt the most serious sociopolitical problem of our age. The lack of respect for life that permits abortion significantly contributes to our violent culture and our careless attitude toward liberty. As an obstetrician, I know that partial birth abortion is never a necessary medical procedure.
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Pro-Life Politics?
A pro-life culture can be built only from the ground up, person by person. For too long we have viewed the battle as purely political, but no political victory can change a degraded culture. A pro-life culture must arise from each of us as individuals, not by the edict of an amoral federal government.
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Federalizing Social Policy
The federalization of social issues, originally championed by the left but now embraced by conservatives, simply has prevented the 50 states from enacting laws that more closely reflect the views of their citizens. Those who seek a pro-life culture must accept that we will never persuade all 300 million Americans to agree with us. A pro-life culture can be built only from the ground up, person by person. For too long we have viewed the battle as purely political, but no political victory can change a degraded society. No Supreme Court ruling by itself can instill greater respect for life. And no Supreme Court justice can save our freedoms if we don’t fight for them ourselves.
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Respect for Life begins with Respect for the Constitutional Rule of Law
Once we allow federal control over abortion, we lose the opportunity for states to enact pro-life legislation. Numerous states already have laws that punish the act of murder against a fetus. Our focus should be on overturning Roe and getting the federal government completely out of the business of regulating state matters.
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Statement of Faith
I have never been one who is comfortable talking about my faith in the political arena. In fact, the pandering that typically occurs in the election season I find to be distasteful. But for those who have asked, I freely confess that Jesus Christ is my personal Savior, and that I seek His guidance in all that I do. I know, as you do, that our freedoms come not from man, but from God. My record of public service reflects my reverence for the Natural Rights with which we have been endowed by a loving Creator.
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Statement on the Congressional Authorization of the Use of Force
Too often over the last several decades we have supported both sides of many wars only to find ourselves needlessly entrenched in conflicts unrelated to our national security. It is not unheard of that the weapons and support we send to foreign nations have ended up being used against us. The current crisis may well be another example of such a mishap.
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End the Income Tax- Pass the Liberty Amendment
Mr. Speaker, America survived and prospered for 140 years without an income tax, and with a federal government that generally adhered to strictly constitutional functions, operating with modest excise revenues. The income tax opened the door to the era (and errors) of Big Government. I hope my colleagues will help close that door by cosponsoring the Liberty Amendment.
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Liberty must be our goal
It is true that liberty is not free, nor is it easy. But tyranny - even varying degrees of it - is much more difficult, and much more expensive. The time has come to rein in the federal government, put it on a crash diet, and let the people keep their money and their liberty.
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Statement on the New York City and Washington, DC Terrorist Attacks
Though many Americans have just become aware of how deeply we are involved in this war, it has been going on for decades. We are obviously seen by the terrorists as an enemy.In war there is no more reprehensible act than for combatants to slaughter innocent civilian bystanders. This is what happened yesterday.
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Domestic Surveillance and the Patriot Act
Recent revelations that the National Security Agency has conducted broad surveillance of American citizens’ emails and phone calls raise serious questions about the proper role of government in a free society. This is an important and healthy debate, one that too often goes ignored by Congress.
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Will We Bring bin Laden to Justice?
We seem to have forgotten that our primary objective in the war on terror is to capture or kill bin Laden and his henchmen. One year ago, the desire for retribution against bin Laden was tangible. President Bush referred to finding him “dead or alive.” And while the hunger for vengeance was understandable, the practical need to destroy al Qaida before it mounted another terror attack was urgent. Yet we have allowed the passage of time and the false specter of an Iraq threat to distract us from our original purpose.
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Effective and Practical Counter-Terrorism Measures
Over the past month I have introduced several bills designed to address terrorism and make Americans feel more secure. While many counter-terrorism proposals were considered in Congress last week, my belief is that the most effective steps we can take do not infringe upon the civil liberties of American citizens. In fact, I believe only a free society can ever be truly secure. The goal should be to make terrorists feel threatened, not the American people.
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The Patriot Act Four Years Later
The Patriot Act, like every political issue, boils down to a simple choice: Should we expand government power, or reduce it? This is the fundamental political question of our day, but it’s quickly forgotten by politicians who once promised to stand for smaller government.
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Suicide Terrorism
I, like many, have assumed that the driving force behind the suicide attacks was Islamic fundamentalism. Promise of instant entry into paradise as a reward for killing infidels seemed to explain the suicides, a concept that is foreign to our way of thinking. The world’s expert on suicide terrorism has convinced me to rethink this simplistic explanation, that terrorism is merely an expression of religious extremism and resentment of a foreign culture.
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Reconsidering the Patriot Act
When Congress passed the Patriot Act in the emotional aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks, a sunset provision was inserted in the bill that causes certain sections to expire at the end of 2005. But this begs the question: If these provisions are critical tools in the fight against terrorism, why revoke them after five years? Conversely, if these provisions violate civil liberties, why is it acceptable to suspend the Constitution for any amount of time?
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Restoring the Second Amendment
Mr. Speaker, I rise to restore the right the founding fathers saw as the guarantee of every other right by introducing the Second Amendment Protection Act. This legislation reverses the steady erosion of the right to keep and bear arms by repealing unconstitutional laws that allow power-hungry federal bureaucrats to restrict the rights of law-abiding gun owners.
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Security and Liberty
The senseless and horrific killings last week on the campus of Virginia Tech University reinforced an uneasy feeling many Americans experienced after September 11th: namely, that government cannot protect us. No matter how many laws we pass, no matter how many police or federal agents we put on the streets, a determined individual or group still can cause great harm. Perhaps the only good that can come from these terrible killings is a reinforced understanding that we as individuals are responsible for our safety and the safety of our families.
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The DC Gun Ban
Today, gun control makes people demonstrably less safe– as any honest examination of criminal statistics reveals. In his book “More Guns, Less Crime,” scholar John Lott demolishes the myth that gun control reduces crime. On the contrary, Lott shows that cities with strict gun control–like Washington DC–experience higher rates of murder and violent crime. It is no coincidence that violent crime flourishes in the nation’s capital, where the individual’s right to defend himself has been most severely curtailed.
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Assault Weapons and Assaults on the Constitution
Tortured interpretations of the Second amendment cannot change the fact that both the letter of the amendment itself and the legislative history conclusively show that the Founders intended ordinary citizens to be armed. The notion that the Second amendment confers rights only upon organized state-run militias is preposterous; the amendment is meaningless unless it protects the gun rights of individuals.
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Snipers, Terror, and Gun Control
For most Americans, guns are not a political issue. People buy and own guns to protect their families, not to commit crimes. The truth is that even millions of Americans who support and vote for gun control own guns themselves, because deep down they share the basic human need to feel secure in their homes.
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Gun Control? Disarm The Bureaucrats!
The Constitution, the highest law of the land, explicitly defines the role of federal government and correctly reserves the authority, power and responsibility for police activities to local government. Why? Because it is at that level where potential abuses can be minimized by a watchful citizenry.
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War on Terror? It’s as Bad as War on Drugs
For the first 140 years of our history, we had essentially no Federal war on drugs, and far fewer problems with drug addiction and related crimes was a consequence. In the past 30 years, even with the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on the drug war, little good has come of it. We have vacillated from efforts to stop the drugs at the source to severely punishing the users, yet nothing has improved. This war has been behind most big government policy powers of the last 30 years, with continual undermining of our civil liberties and personal privacy.
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The War on Drugs is a War on Doctors
When we talk about the federal war on drugs, most people conjure up visions of sinister South American drug cartels or violent urban street gangs. The emerging face of the drug war, however, is not a gangster or a junkie: It’s your friendly personal physician in a white coat. Faced with their ongoing failure to curtail the illegal drug trade, federal drug agencies have found an easier target in ordinary doctors whose only crime is prescribing perfectly legal pain medication. By applying federal statutes intended for drug dealers, federal prosecutors are waging a senseless and destructive war on doctors.
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The Federal War on Pain Relief
Do we really want the Drug Enforcement Administration jailing doctors for the alleged misdeeds of patients? Certainly some individuals abuse prescription pain killers, but federal agents are hardly qualified to decide what kind of drugs are appropriate for pain patients. Zealous prosecutors certainly show no interest in learning the basic facts of pain management.
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Rethinking Birthright Citizenship
Make no mistake, Americans are happy to welcome immigrants who follow our immigration laws and seek a better life here. America is far more welcoming and tolerant of newcomers than virtually any nation on earth. But our modern welfare state creates perverse incentives for immigrants, incentives that cloud the issue of why people choose to come here. The real problem is not immigration, but rather the welfare state magnet.
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Immigration Reform in 2006?
Both the Bush administration and congressional leadership have promised to spend the next two months addressing national security issues. But real national security cannot be achieved unless and until our borders are physically secured. It’s as simple as that. All the talk about fighting terror and making America safer is meaningless without border security. It makes no sense to seek terrorists abroad if our own front door is left unlocked.
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Amnesty and the Welfare State
The problems associated with illegal immigration will not be solved overnight, but we cannot begin to address them until we take the hard steps of securing the borders, rejecting amnesty, and reclaiming our right as a sovereign nation to control immigration without apology.
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Sane and Sensible Immigration Policies After September 11
We must do a better job keeping track of the non-citizens who already have been admitted to America. Individuals who remain in the country after their visas have expired must be treated as lawbreakers. Remember, only U.S. citizens have the constitutional right to be on American soil; non-citizens are in the country at the discretion of the State department. We should not tolerate lawless behavior or anti-American activities from guests in our country.
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Amnesty Opponents Are Not Un-American
I strongly disagree with the president that opposing this legislation is unpatriotic. I believe we have an obligation to reject any legislation that promises amnesty to those here illegally, and that undermines the sovereignty and privacy of American citizens.
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Immigration “Compromise” Sells Out Our Sovereignty
The much-vaunted Senate “compromise” on immigration is a compromise alright: a compromise of our laws, a compromise of our sovereignty, and a compromise of the Second Amendment. That anyone in Washington believes this is a credible approach to solving our immigration crisis suggests just how out of touch our political elites really are.
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The Immigration Question
We are often reminded that America is a nation of immigrants, implying that we are coldhearted to restrict immigration in any way. But the new Americans reaching our shores in the late 1800s and early 1900s were legal immigrants. In many cases they had no chance of returning home again. They maintained their various ethnic and cultural identities, but they also learned English and embraced their new nationality.
If we reward millions who came here illegally, surely millions more will follow suit. Ten years from now we will be in the same position, with a whole new generation of lawbreakers seeking amnesty.
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National ID Cards Won’t Stop Terrorism or Illegal Immigration
One overriding point has been forgotten: Criminals don’t obey laws! As with gun control, national ID cards will only affect law-abiding citizens. Do we really believe a terrorist bent on murder is going to dutifully obtain a federal ID card? Do we believe that people who openly flout our immigration laws will nonetheless respect our ID requirements? Any ID card can be forged; any federal agency or state DMV is susceptible to corruption. Criminals can and will obtain national ID cards, or operate without them. National ID cards will be used to track the law-abiding masses, not criminals.
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Taxes, Spending, and Debt are the Real Issues
I apply a very simple test to any proposal to overhaul the tax code: Does it reduce or eliminate an existing tax? If not, then it amounts to nothing more than a political shell game that pits taxpayers against each other in a lobbying scramble to make sure the other guy pays. True tax reform is as simple as cutting or eliminating taxes. No studies, panels, committees, or hearings are needed. When reform proposals seem complicated, they almost certainly don’t cut taxes. Congress should simply focus on cutting existing taxes and reducing spending, instead of complicated overhauls of the system.
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Surrender Should Not Be an Option
The American people have NOT gotten the government they deserve. They asked for a stronger America and peace through nonintervention, yet we have a government of deceit, inaction and one that puts us in grave danger on the international front. The American People deserve much better than this. They deserve foreign and domestic policy that doesn’t require they surrender their liberties.
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Tragedy begets tragedy. Violence in schools doesn’t justify violence against liberty.
In rushing to “do something,” even good people are tempted to promote a very bad idea, presenting Americans with a false choice: give up the precious liberties of Bill of Rights and cede greater power to the federal government, or face more youth violence. Reality, of course, demonstrates something very different.
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UN Plans for Global Gun Control
Gun control proponents like to characterize light weapons as ineffective in wartime, but history proves they are critical to the self-defense of nations … UN gun control advocates ignore history when they attempt to link guns only with crime, and never with heroic resistance to tyranny.
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Rush Limbaugh and the Sick Federal War on Pain Relief
In cases where patients are not high profile celebrities like Mr. Limbaugh, it is pain management physicians who bear the brunt of overzealous prosecutors. Faced with the failure of the war on drugs to eliminate drug cartels and kingpins, prosecutors and police have turned their attention to pain management doctors, using federal statutes designed for the prosecution of drug dealers to prosecute physicians for prescribing pain medicine.
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Political Power and the Rule of Law
The problem is that politicians are not supposed to have power over us– we’re supposed to be free. We seem to have forgotten that freedom means the absence of government coercion. So when politicians and the media celebrate political power, they really are celebrating the power of certain individuals to use coercive state force.
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What Does Freedom Really Mean?
Few Americans understand that all government action is inherently coercive. If nothing else, government action requires taxes. If taxes were freely paid, they wouldn’t be called taxes, they’d be called donations. If we intend to use the word freedom in an honest way, we should have the simple integrity to give it real meaning: Freedom is living without government coercion. So when a politician talks about freedom for this group or that, ask yourself whether he is advocating more government action or less.
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“Campaign Finance Reform” Muzzles Political Dissent
In a devastating blow to political speech, the Supreme Court recently upheld most of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill passed by Congress last year. The legislation will do nothing to curb special interest power or reduce corruption in Washington, but it will make it harder for average Americans to influence government. We need to get money out of government; only then will money not be important in politics. Big government and big campaign money go hand-in-hand.
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Awarding Gold Medal to Former President and Mrs. Ronald Reagan in Recognition of Service to Nation
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 3591. At the same time, I am very supportive of President Reagan’s publicly stated view of limiting the federal government to it’s proper and constitutional role. In fact, I was one of only four sitting members of the United States House of Representatives who endorsed Ronald Reagan’s candidacy for President in 1976. The United States enjoyed sustained economic prosperity and employment growth during Ronald Reagan’s presidency.
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Drug Reimportation Increases Medical Freedom
Federal law currently prohibits Americans from buying pharmaceuticals from other countries, even though identical drugs often cost one-third to one-half less in foreign pharmacies. So while Americans ostensibly enjoy a freer economy than the rest of the world, they perversely pay more for their prescriptions than residents of any other nation. The pharmaceutical industry obviously likes this, and it worked overtime lobbying against the reimportation measure- paying off some strange bedfellows in the process. Several supposedly free-market groups came out against reimportation, making tortured attempts to argue that the free-market principles they normally promote somehow just don’t apply to imported prescription drugs.
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HillaryCare, Republican Style
The Republican congress voted for a huge expansion of Medicare that enriches pharmaceutical companies, fleeces taxpayers with billions in new spending, and forces millions of seniors to accept inferior drug coverage. Conservatives might ask themselves whether this is what they had in mind when the party of “limited government” gained control of the House, Senate, and White House.
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“Patients Bill of Rights” or Federal Takeover of Medicine?
What should we do about the HMO mess? Before we call for government action, we should recognize that the federal government has virtually mandated HMOs on the American people. So while many in Congress are happy to criticize HMOs today, the public never hears how the present system was imposed upon the American people by federal law. Not surprisingly, the loudest voices on Capitol Hill now calling for a so-called “patients bill of rights” don’t want to abolish the HMO mandate. Instead, more government is proposed to fix the problem.
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Inflation- Alive and Well
The Treasury department parrots the Fed line that consumer prices, as measured by the consumer price index (CPI), are under control. The most glaring problem is that CPI excludes housing prices, instead tracking rents. The Fed’s easy credit policies have created an artificial mortgage boom, enabling many Americans who would not have met credit standards 30 years ago to buy houses. So demand for rentals has diminished, causing rental housing prices to drop and distorting the CPI downward. However, everyone knows the cost of purchasing a home has increased dramatically in the last ten years. The prices of many other goods and services, including medical care and energy, also have increased substantially in the past decade.
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Monetary Policy is Critically Important
Money is the lifeblood of any economy, and control over a nation’s currency means control over its economic well being. Fed bankers quite literally determine the value of our money, by controlling the supply of dollars and establishing interest rates. Their actions can make you richer or poorer overnight, in terms of the value of your savings and the buying power of your paycheck. So I urge all Americans to educate themselves about monetary policy, and better understand how a small group of unelected individuals at the Federal Reserve and Treasury department wield tremendous power over our lives.
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Uncontrolled Spending Threatens Our Liberty
Congress will spend nearly $2 trillion in 2002. This amount represents almost 11% more than Congress will spend in 2001. This massive spending funds an unbelievable number of federal departments, agencies, programs, and personnel. Most Americans understand that the federal government is far too large, yet most of their representatives in Congress continue to vote for spending increases every year. As a result, the same unconstitutional agencies grow, the same counterproductive programs are perpetuated, and the same military adventurism expands around the globe. In short, this spending insures that the federal government has more and more power over our lives, power never dreamed of nor intended by the authors of our Constitution.
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Enron, Bankruptcy, and Easy Credit
It is a mistake for Congress view the Enron collapse as an justification for more government regulation. Publicly held corporations already comply with massive amounts of SEC regulations, including the filing of quarterly reports that disclose minute details of assets and liabilities. If these disclosure rules failed to protect Enron investors, will more red tape really solve anything? The more we look to the government to protect us from investment mistakes, the less competition there is for truly independent evaluations of investment risk.
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Honor Veterans with a Better Budget
We should understand that veterans programs, unlike so many federal programs, are constitutional. The Constitution specifically provides for Congress to fund armed forces and provide national defense. Congress and the nation accordingly have a constitutional obligation to keep the promises made to those who provide that defense. This is why I support increased funding for veterans, while opposing the bloated spending bills that fund corporate and social welfare, pork favoritism, and special interests at the expense of those veterans.
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Legislation for our Military Families and Veterans
I recently cosponsored legislation that would exempt members of America’s armed forces from income taxes. This legislation, introduced by my colleague John Culberson, would extend the existing tax exemption for armed forces serving in combat zones to the entire active duty military. This would eliminate withholding and income tax filing for the nation’s soldiers, allowing them to keep their entire paychecks.
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Honoring Our Military Veterans
If we really hope to honor veterans, we must change the culture of the Veteran’s Administration, which is as bureaucratic and inefficient as any federal agency. This dramatically affects the well-being of millions of former service members, who rely squarely on the VA for health care, retirement living, and monthly payment of veteran’s benefits. Legislation and better funding can help, but as with all federal agencies, mismanagement is the real problem. Veterans deserve dignified care, and we can’t provide that with a VA that is run like the Postal Service or the IRS.
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Mistreating Soldiers and Veterans
Members of our armed forces deserve more than platitudes when they return from foreign wars with illnesses or disabilities. Unfortunately, the trust our soldiers place in the federal government to provide for their health care has been breached time and time again. Last week’s partial grant of concurrent receipt benefits will prove woefully inadequate for most of our disabled veterans, veterans who could be well-served with just a fraction of the billions Congress gave away in Iraq.
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The First Amendment Protects Religious Speech
The Court completely disregards the original meaning and intent of the First amendment. It has interpreted the establishment clause to preclude prayer and other religious speech in a public place, thereby violating the free exercise clause of the very same First amendment. Therefore, it is incumbent upon Congress to correct this error, and to perform its duty to support and defend the Constitution. The federal government has no constitutional authority to reach its hands in the religious affairs of its citizens or of the several states.
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What Does the First Amendment Really Mean?
The First amendment acts as a simple check on federal power, ensuring that the federal government has no jurisdiction or authority whatsoever over religious issues. The phony “incorporation” doctrine, dreamed up by activist judges to pervert the plain meaning of the Constitution, was used once again by a federal court to assume jurisdiction over a case that constitutionally was none of its business.
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Religious Liberty Thwarted by the Supreme Court
The language is clear- Congress simply is prohibited from passing laws establishing religion or prohibiting the free exercise of religion. There certainly is no mention of any “separation of church and state”, although Supreme Court jurisprudence over the decades constantly asserts this mystical doctrine. Sadly, the application of this faulty doctrine by judges and lawmakers consistently results in violations of the free exercise clause. Rulings and laws separating citizens from their religious beliefs in all public settings simply restrict religious practices. The religious freedom required by the Constitution should not end the moment one enters a school, courtroom, or city hall.
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Respect for Property Rights Necessary for Freedom
Freedom only exists where there is complete respect for rights of property ownership. When we go to another person’s land, or home, or business, we should expect to be bound by their rules of conduct. And they should be free to protect their property and family as they see fit.
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The Federal Education Morass
After more than 40 years of massive federal education spending, the inescapable conclusion is that federal control is failing. By any objective standards, our public schools are worse than ever. Policies regarding curricula and discipline, once set by local teachers and principals working closely with parents, are now established in Washington. I believe that parents and teachers know what is best for their schools at the local level. The key to reforming public education in America is returning local control back to our public schools.
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The Voucher Debate and the Failure of Federal Education
The voucher debate really ignores the more important question of whether public schools should be run by federal or local government. The Constitution does not authorize any federal involvement in education; Article I grants Congress no authority to create, fund, or regulate schools at all. Congress should not be taxing you to fund a huge federal education bureaucracy that exercises dictatorial control over curriculum and standards nationwide. Those tax dollars should be left with parents and local voters, who can best decide how to allocate precious education resources. Public schools should be funded at the local level with local tax dollars, where waste is minimized and accountability is greatest.
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Local Control is the Key to Education Reform
The key to fixing our education system is to reduce the role of the federal government and expand local and parental control of schools. Funding decisions increasingly have been controlled by bureaucrats in Washington, causing public and even some private schools to follow the dictates of these federal “educrats” to an ever-greater degree to preserve their funding. As a result, curricula, teacher standards, textbook selection, and discipline policies have been crafted in Washington. Rigorous classes in basics such as mathematics, grammar, science, Western civilization, and history have been reduced or eliminated, while politically favored subjects have been forced upon students.
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Can We Achieve Peace in the Middle East?
Practically speaking, our meddling in the Middle East has only intensified strife and conflict. American tax dollars have militarized the entire region. We give Israel about $3 billion each year, but we also give Egypt $2 billion. Most other Middle East countries get money too, some of which ends up in the hands of Palestinian terrorists. Both sides have far more military weapons as a result. Talk about adding fuel to the fire! Our foolish and unconstitutional foreign aid has produced more violence, not less.
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The Maestro Changes his Tune
“The abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for the welfare statists to use the banking system as a means to an unlimited expansion of credit. In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the hidden confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists’ antagonism toward the gold standard.” -Alan Greenspan, 1966
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Paul Praises Home Schoolers
Ron Paul sponsors resolution designating National Home Schooling Week
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Statement on the Congressional Education Plan
When parents control the education dollar, schools must be responsive to parental demands that their children receive first-class educations, otherwise, parents will find alternative means to educate their children. Furthermore, parents whose children are in public schools may use their credit to improve their schools by purchasing of educational tools such as computers or extracurricular activities such as music programs. Parents of public school students may also wish to use the credit to pay for special services for their children.
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The Family Education Freedom Act
I rise today to introduce the Family Education Freedom Act, a bill to empower millions of working and middle-class Americans to choose a non-public education for their children, as well as making it easier for parents to actively participate in improving public schools. The Family Education Freedom Act accomplishes it goals by allowing American parents a tax credit of up to $3,000 for the expenses incurred in sending their child to private, public, parochial, other religious school, or for home schooling their children.
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Diagnosing our Health Care Woes
The problems with our health care system are not the result of too little government intervention, but rather too much. Contrary to the claims of many advocates of increased government regulation of health care, rising costs and red tape do not represent market failure. Rather, they represent the failure of government policies that have destroyed the health care market.
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Lowering the Cost of Health Care
As a medical doctor, I’ve seen first-hand how bureaucratic red tape interferes with the doctor-patient relationship and drives costs higher. The current system of third-party payers takes decision-making away from doctors, leaving patients feeling rushed and worsening the quality of care. Yet health insurance premiums and drug costs keep rising. Clearly a new approach is needed. Congress needs to craft innovative legislation that makes health care more affordable without raising taxes or increasing the deficit. It also needs to repeal bad laws that keep health care costs higher than necessary.
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How Government Debt Grows
Today our national debt stands at $8.2 trillion, which represents about $26,000 for every man, woman, and child in America. It’s time for American taxpayers to understand that every dollar will have to be repaid. We should have the courage to face our grandchildren knowing that we have done all we can to end the government spending spree.
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Repeal Sarbanes-Oxley!
I rise to introduce the Due Process and Economic Competitiveness Restoration Act, which repeals Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Sarbanes-Oxley was rushed into law in the hysterical atmosphere surrounding the Enron and WorldCom bankruptcies, by a Congress more concerned with doing something than doing the right thing. Today, American businesses, workers, and investors are suffering because Congress was so eager to appear “tough on corporate crime.”
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Regulation, Free Trade and Mexican Trucks
Another NAFTA nail is about to be hammered into the coffin Washington is building for the US economy. Rather than securing our borders, we seem to be providing more pores for illegal aliens, drug dealers, and terrorists to permeate. Not only that, but the anti-competitive and burdensome yoke of over-regulation of our industry at home is about to send a lot more Americans to the unemployment lines. Free trade is not the problem, and pseudo free trade is what is being offered in the wrongly named North American Free Trade Agreement and all its offshoots.
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Entangling Alliances
Entangling alliances with no one means no foreign aid to Pakistan, or Egypt, or Israel, or anyone else for that matter. If an American citizen determines a foreign country or cause is worthy of their money, let them send it, and encourage their neighbors to send money too, but our government has no authority to use hard-earned American taxpayer dollars to mire us in these nightmarishly complicated, no-win entangling alliances. We need to understand that a simple, humble foreign policy makes us less vulnerable and less targeted on the world stage.
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Turn Out the Lights
In a scene more reminiscent of Soviet Russia or Maoist China than America, central government bureaucrats, economic planners, regulators, and regional government officials met behind closed doors last week in Washington. The purpose of their meeting? To discuss a wholesale government takeover of California’s electricity industry.
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Bombed if you do, Bombed if you Don’t
As I have been saying all along, Iran indeed poses no quantifiable imminent nuclear threat to us or her neighbors. It is unthinkable that despite lack of any evidence of a threat, some are still charging headstrong into yet another war in the Middle East when what we ought to be doing is coming home from Iraq, coming home from Korea, coming home from Germany and defending our own soil. We do not need to be interfering in the internal affairs of other countries and waging war when honest trade, friendship, and diplomacy are the true paths to peace and prosperity.
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Statement on the Congressional Education Plan
Congress is now considering whether to continue this cycle by passing the national five-year plan contained in H.R. 1, the so-called “No Child Left Behind Act.'’ A better title for this bill is “No Bureaucrat Left Behind'’ because, even though it’s proponents claim H.R. 1 restores power over education to states and local communities, this bill represents a massive increase in federal control over education. H.R. 1 contains the word “ensure'’ 150 times, “require'’ 477 times, “shall'’ 1,537 and “shall not'’ 123 times. These words are usually used to signify federal orders to states and localities. Only in a town where a decrease in the rate of spending increases is considered a cut could a bill laden with federal mandates be considered an increase in local control!
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On Illegal Immigration and Border Security
Illegal immigration is on the forefront of many Americans’ minds lately and with good reason. The Center for Immigration Studies has recently reported that our immigrant population is now 37 million, up from 27 million in 1997. 1 in 3 of these immigrants are here illegally. The anger is understandable when it comes to illegal immigration and the problems with our borders. I will continue to fight in Congress for more effective ways to address these issues in keeping with the Constitutional mandate to protect America .
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Earmark Victory May Be A Hollow One
Though much attention is focused on the notorious abuses of earmarking, and there are plenty of examples, in fact even if all earmarks were eliminated we would not necessarily save a single penny in the federal budget. Because earmarks are funded from spending levels that have been determined before a single earmark is agreed to, with or without earmarks the spending levels remain the same. 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.
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Statement before the Joint Economic Committee
Back in the 1970s, government-caused inflation reached levels high enough that the Nixon administration decided to implement wage and price controls. Placing blame on greedy speculators, unscrupulous mortgage originators, or panicky investors, is a common reaction on the part of government.
The solution called for, despite the numerous documented failures of government regulation, is always more regulation, more government involvement in and control over the economy, and less free enterprise. Never is the blame placed squarely where it belongs, which is on the shoulders of legislators and regulators whose actions distort the market, prohibiting legitimate market activities and encouraging the development of labyrinthine and opaque financial schemes.
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Lessons from the Kelo Decision
One week after the Kelo decision by the Supreme Court, Americans are still reeling from the shock of having our nation’s highest tribunal endorse using government power to condemn private homes to benefit a property developer. Even as we celebrate our independence from England this July 4th, we find ourselves increasingly enslaved by petty bureaucrats at every level of government. The anger engendered by the Kelo case certainly resonates on this holiday based on rebellion against government.
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None of Your Business!
The national census, which historically is taken every ten years, has expanded to quench the federal bureaucracy’s ever-growing thirst to govern every aspect of American life. The new survey, unlike the traditional census, is taken each and every year at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. It contains 24 pages of intrusive questions concerning matters that simply are none of the government’s business, including your job, your income, your physical and emotional heath, your family status, your dwelling, and your intimate personal habits. Americans are legally obligated to answer, and can be fined up to $1,000 per question if they refuse!
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Elected Officials Threatening Property Rights
It’s clear that many political and business interests are only too willing to drive people literally out of their homes to make way for the grand schemes of those in power. This is why every American needs to understand that property rights are the foundation of a free society. Without property rights, all citizens live subject to the whims of government officials. When government can seize your property without your consent, all of your other rights are negated. Our founders would roll over in their graves if they knew that the takings clause in the Fifth Amendment was being used to justify unholy alliances between private developers and tax-hungry local governments.
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Congratulating Home Educators and Home Schooled Students
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to support H. Res. 578, which celebrates the accomplishments of parents across the nation who have chosen to educate their children at home by designating the first week of October as ‘National Home Schooling Week.’ While serving in Congress, I have had the opportunity to get to know many of the home-schooling parents in my district. I am very impressed by the job these parents are doing in providing their children with a quality education. I have also found that home schooling parents are among the most committed activists in the cause of advancing individual liberty, constitutional government, and traditional values.
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Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act
Legislation such as this demands heavy-handed governmental action against American citizens where no crime has been committed. It is yet another attack on our Constitutionally-protected civil liberties. It is my sincere hope that we will reject such approaches to security, which will fail at their stated goal at a great cost to our way of life.
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Can the UN Really be Reformed?
The more we involve ourselves with the UN, the more we entangle ourselves in the affairs of other nations to our own detriment. America has nothing to show for our 60 years in the UN except for tens of thousands of dead or injured soldiers, and hundreds of billions of wasted tax dollars. The 20th century– the UN century– was the bloodiest in the world’s history. We must stop fooling ourselves that the UN is an instrument of world peace.
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CAFTA: More Bureaucracy, Less Free Trade
CAFTA and other international trade agreements do not represent free trade. Free trade occurs in the absence of government interference in the flow of goods, while CAFTA represents more government in the form of an international body. It is incompatible with our Constitution and national sovereignty, and we don’t need it to benefit from international trade.
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U.S. Congress Bows to WTO Mandate
An extraordinary event occurred this week in Washington during the final days of the 106th Congress, an event that did not receive comment in either the media or the halls of Congress, save for my office. This event had been termed “unthinkable” only a few months earlier. It occurred despite clear constitutional prohibitions and at the expense of our precious national sovereignty. For the first time in the history of our country, Congress voted to change our domestic laws because an international body told us to do so. The World Trade Organization (WTO) has begun to dictate American laws.
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The NAFTA Superhighway
This superhighway would connect Mexico, the United States, and Canada, cutting a wide swath through the middle of Texas and up through Kansas City. This will require coordinated federal and state eminent domain actions on an unprecedented scale, as literally millions of people and businesses could be displaced. The loss of whole communities is almost certain, as planners cannot wind the highway around every quaint town, historic building, or senior citizen apartment for thousands of miles. One principal player is a Spanish construction company, which plans to build the highway and operate it as a toll road. But don’t be fooled: the superhighway proposal is not the result of free market demand, but rather an extension of government-managed trade schemes like NAFTA that benefit politically-connected interests.
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Christmas in Secular America
Through perverse court decisions and years of cultural indoctrination, the elitist, secular Left has managed to convince many in our nation that religion must be driven from public view. The justification is always that someone, somewhere, might possibly be offended or feel uncomfortable living in the midst of a largely Christian society, so all must yield to the fragile sensibilities of the few. The ultimate goal of the anti-religious elites is to transform America into a completely secular nation, a nation that is legally and culturally biased against Christianity.
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On Foreign Entanglements: The Ties that Strangle
Our founding fathers knew a better way to talk with our neighbors, do honest business with them, cultivate friendship, allow travel and open communication. We should neither initiate violence, nor take sides in conflicts that are none of our business.
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HR 418- A National ID Bill Masquerading as Immigration Reform
I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 418, the REAL ID Act. This bill purports to make us safer from terrorists who may sneak into the United States, and from other illegal immigrants. While I agree that these issues are of vital importance, this bill will do very little to make us more secure. It will not address our real vulnerabilities. It will, however, make us much less free. In reality, this bill is a Trojan horse. It pretends to offer desperately needed border control in order to stampede Americans into sacrificing what is uniquely American: our constitutionally protected liberty.
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Don’t Blame the Free Market for Energy Shortages
The true crisis facing us is not a physical shortage of energy, but rather the looming threat that socialist economic planning will replace market mechanisms and cause unnecessary shortages.
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The Political and Economic Agenda for a Real Gold Standard
One of the basic insights of the great Austrian economists, both Carl Menger and Ludwig von Mises, is that money emerged by evolution from the market process. It was not invented by governments. There are basic economic forces today that are contributing to the further evolution of the monetary system, and there is a political strategy that I believe will make it possible to liberate those forces and restore the monetary role for gold. Because of the current economic and political climate, it is important to understand what we can do — and what we cannot hope to do in the short run.
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A Free Market in Gasoline
We must understand that high oil prices are not the result of an unregulated free market. On the contrary, the oil industry is among the most regulated and most subsidized of U.S. industries. Perhaps we need to ask ourselves whether too much government involvement in the oil markets, rather than too little regulation, has kept the supply of refined gasoline artificially low.
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What Congress Can Do About Soaring Gas Prices
Gasoline prices are soaring and the people are screaming. And they want something done about it—now!
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Foreign Policy, Monetary Policy, and Gas Prices
The burning issue in Washington today is high gas prices, and it won’t go away anytime soon. Americans are not happy about paying $3 per gallon at the pump, and they want something done about it.
But price controls won’t work, and allegations of price gouging and “windfall profits” amount to nothing more than congressional grandstanding. No government official or politician is fit to define a “fair” price for gas or a “fair” profit for oil companies. This is not the Soviet Union. The last thing we need is centralized government planning when it comes to our precious energy supplies.
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Statement Introducing the Free Competition in Currency Act
As a proponent of competition in currencies, I believe that the American people should be free to choose the type of currency they prefer to use. The ability of consumers to adopt alternative currencies can help to keep the government and the Federal Reserve honest, as the threat that further inflation will cause more and more people to opt out of using the dollar may restrain the government from debasing the currency. As monopolists, however, the Federal Reserve and the Mint fear competition, and would rather force competitors out using the federal court system and the threat of asset forfeiture than compete in the market.
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Stop the NAIS
NAIS means more government, more regulations, more fees, more federal spending, less privacy, and diminished property rights. It’s exactly the kind of federal program every conservative, civil libertarian, animal lover, businessman, farmer, and rancher should oppose.
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Politics and Judicial Activism
Federal judges were never meant to wield the tremendous power that they do in modern America. Our Founders would find it inconceivable that a handful of unelected, unaccountable federal judges can decide social policy for the entire nation. With the federal judiciary focused more on legislating social policy than upholding the rule of law, Americans find themselves increasingly governed by men they did not elect and cannot remove from office. Unless and until Congress asserts itself by limiting federal court jurisdiction, judges will continue to act as de facto lawmakers.
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Constitutional Responses to Terrorism
It has been over 6 years since the atrocities of September 11 were committed and there are still some very basic measures that need to be taken to bring the perpetrators to justice and make America safer. I have proposed legislation to help with these efforts and will continue to fight in Congress for the safety and security of the American people.
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Federal Intelligence and Terrorism
Since September 11th we have heard predictable calls for vastly increasing the budgets of those agencies charged with intelligence gathering- including the CIA, FBI, ATF, INS, DIA, and NSA- but perhaps those agencies need to consolidate rather than expand their efforts. The current system involves too many bureaucrats, too much overlap, too many turf battles, too little information sharing, and no clear accountability. Why do we insist on perpetuating failed agencies and policies, throwing more and more money at problems that stem from bureaucratic culture rather than funding problems? Why do we think $60 or $80 billion will change what $40 billion could not?
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Blame Congress for HMOs
The story behind the creation of the HMOs is a classic illustration of how the unintended consequences of government policies provide a justification for further expansions of government power. During the early seventies, Congress embraced HMOs in order to address concerns about rapidly escalating health care costs. However, it was Congress which had caused health care costs to spiral by removing control over the health care dollar from consumers and thus eliminating any incentive for consumers to pay attention to costs when selecting health care.
Twila Brase, a registered nurse and President of the Citizens’ Council on Health Care, reveals how HMOs were fostered on the American people by the federal government for the express purpose of rationing care.
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Affordability of Child Health Care
As an OB-GYN who has had the privilege of delivering more than four thousand babies, I know how important it is that parents have the resources to provide adequate health care for their children. The inability of many working Americans to provide health care for their children is rooted in one of the great inequities of the tax code: Congress’ failure to allow individuals the same ability to deduct health care costs that it grants to businesses. As a direct result of Congress’ refusal to provide individuals with