If there is no funding, how can the department pay it's employees? Thats like somebody saying "I'm not going to kill you, I'm just going to push you off a 200ft cliff and what happens after that is not my doing".

You left out a word. I'm sure you can figure it out.

Help me understand this. Is that to say that, for example, the Department of Education would receive no new funding for 2014? If there is no funding, I am assuming they cannot pay the people that work for the Department of Education or conduct any operations.

I am not understanding the fundamental difference between starving it of an operating budget and just shuttering it completely.

I wonder if Paul's budgets assume some theoretical model where people with 15-years of training doing something specialized automatically move to "productive jobs" (because that's all that exists in the private sector, of course) or if it reflects a more probable outcome in which the effects increase unemployment, increase unemployment insurance expenses, decrease tax revenue, decrease aggregate demand, etc.

Better?

The wording is not important, the point is.

Current (as opposed to new) funding would continue (though reduced to 2006 levels). No mandatory layoffs. Some responsibilities shifted to state and local control. 10% reduction in federal work force accomplished through attrition as departments shrink over time.

That sounds like a lot of political BS to me. I thought he was supposed to be super honest and not say misleading things?

BTW Scrappy Jack, I:love: you. It can a hard life in here trying to preach reason, rational thinking and occasional empathy, especially alone.

You sound like a lot of political BS to ME.

Great discussion! Keep it up!

Regarding the question of the real feasibility of serious budget cuts when forced to work with Congress, etc. -- is this really an actual objection? It's counted as a strike against Ron Paul that others may not be willing to cut the budget as much as he'd like?

Of course it would be a battle for him to construct a budget that has some serious cuts that would get passed by Congress. That's how the system works. But at the very least, we'd have a chief executive who actually desires budget cuts, rather than just another liar who says he's cutting the budget by X amount, when what he really means is that he's cutting into projected future spending increases by X amount (but when we reach that point, we'll probably not cut the spending increase by X anyway).

One step at a time. Get a President who's serious about constructing a balanced budget, and then vote out the jackasses in Congress if they won't pass it.

any country that's serious about their future reduces & limits gov't spending, and gets rid of pointless pencil pusher jobs that do nothing but slow the economy. This is something even Canada beats us at.

yes sir i did put words in yer mouth
guilty as charged

my point is that the president of the united states has full power to bring the troops home whenever he pleases

as a congress man ron paul does not

lemme rephrase my question.

were you trying to say that obama can't bring the troops home right now if he wants too?
and why did he break his campaign promise?
is it because he did not have the power?

I must be misunderstanding something, then. I was thinking he wanted to immediately eliminate several departments, but it sounds like you are saying he wants to continue the departments - just with reduced funding now and in the future?

Assume it is calendar year 2014 and the Department of TSP Reports has a budget of $2 billion for fiscal year 2015. What happens in calendar year 2015 under your understanding of Paul's plan? After that?

Just so you know, I wrote to my congresswoman and one of the things she (or more likely her secretary) pointed me to was this:

If you would like to report welfare fraud and abuse in Florida, please e-mail the Florida Department of Children and Families at http://www.dcf.state.fl.us/admin/ig/fraud.shtml

So if you know some POS welfare abuser in FL, report them.

Uh, isn't that first?

And fuck yes, GO PAUL

Why didn't they move Paul to the left position? Isn't 23% more than 22%?


Edit: Beat me to it

It really is pretty damn comical (assuming that is not shooped).

I laugh whenever I learn that somebody watches Fox news too.

Also, I saw something where Fox "accidentally" put Obama's face in place of Paul's.

Fox News is no better or worse than any other mainstream media outlet. If anything, you go in to it expecting bias. The news part seems pretty objective; it's the commentary that is obviously biased but that is true with all news outlets. If anything, the NY Times, NBC affiliates, et al are a little more subversive because they sometimes seem to blend their bias in to the regular news coverage.


The comical part was the continued Rodney Dangerfielding of Ron Paul.