Like many chaps round these parts, my general line on Ron Paul was that, as much as I think he’s out of his gourd on Iran et al, he performs a useful role in the GOP line-up talking up the virtues of constitutional conservatism. But this Weekly Standard piece by John McCormack suggests Paul is a humbug even on his core domestic turf: The entitlement state is the single biggest deformation to the Founders’ republic, and it downgrades not only America’s finances but its citizenry. Yet Paul has no serious proposal for dealing with it, and indeed promises voters that we won’t have to as long as we cut “overseas spending”.
This is hooey. As I point out in my book, well before the end of this decade interest payments on the debt will consume more of the federal budget than military spending. So you could abolish the Pentagon, sell off the fleet to Beijing and the nukes to Tehran and Khartoum and anybody else who wants ‘em, and we’d still be heading off the cliff. If a candidate isn’t talking about entitlement transformation, he’s unserious.
And, before the Ronulans start jeering “Neocon!”, I part company with many friends on the right who argue that defense spending can’t be cut. I wrote a cover story for NR a couple of months back arguing that the military’s bloated size (and budget) is increasingly an impediment to its effectiveness: When you’re responsible for 43 per cent of global military expenditure, it’s hardly surprising that you start acting like the world’s most lavishly funded transnational-outreach non-profit rather than the sharp end of America’s national interest. In Afghanistan, the problem is not that we haven’t spent enough money but that so much of it has been utterly wasted – and mostly in predictable ways. I am in favor of a leaner, meaner military, with the emphasis on both adjectives.
But Ron Paul, with his breezy indifference to the entitlement question, is peddling the same illusion Obama sold a gullible electorate in 2008 – that, if only America retreats from “Bush’s wars”, life can go on, and we’ll be fat and happy with literally not a care in the world. Big Government parochialism is an appealing fantasy because it suggests America’s fortunes can be restored without pain. But they can’t – and when Ron Paul tells you otherwise he’s talking hogwash.
PS I’d be interested in hearing what Derb (Dr Paul’s biggest booster round here) thinks of his entitlement insouciance.
Steyn, it's you and your fellow NeoCons who are out of their gourd on Iran. You've been wrong on everything since 9/11. Taken the country over the cliff.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAre you trying to claim that if we had ignored 9/11, the economy right now would be booming and the budget would be balanced?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAbsolutely...we'd still be running the burka and hejab factories 24/6 in our new dhimmi-tized USA!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMark, what is your theory on what motivated the terrorists on 9/11? You still buying the "they hate our way of life" so we should bomb them and build bases in their countries theory?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhat motivated the evil SOBs on 9/11 is the same thing that has motivated Islam from the get go - hatred of the infidel. President Thomas Jefferson was told as much when he wrote to them to find out why they were bothering our ships and shipping lanes over on the other side of the world. We had done nothing to them (just like Ron Paul says we should be now), and they attacked our ships anyway.
So we sent in the Marines and they stopped bothering us for quite a long time. We didn't try to nation-build or anything like that. We did what the American military is best at - we kicked major behind and we left them crying on their prayer rugs.
We should have gone into Afghanistan, we just should have kicked behind and left. Iraq was a toss up - it could have perhaps waited, but hindsight is 20/20. But we should have done the same there - kicked behind and left.
And then we should be getting our oil from someone else (including ourselves) and making the A-rabs choke on theirs.
And, yes, we should stand by Israel because she is our ally.
The fantasy that you can be friends with evil people and everything will be okay didn't work out well for Europe in the 1930s, did it? What makes you think it's going to work any better now, especially when we are dealing with people who still live in the 7th century?
Clear it up any, skippy?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMark Steyn is one of them. Us should storm the Bilderbergenmeisterhausenpfeiffer and take back our country!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseUnfortunately, it's clear that comments on the NRO site can be just as oafish as those in wider web.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"And, before the Ronulans start jeering “Neocon!”, ...."
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt only took one post.....
Good point, I will your comments to this post: External Link
No way will Paul ever get the GOP nomination. The question is whether the GOP should try to keep him from running as a third party candidate in the general election. Not everything Paul promotes is bad. Somethings should absolutely be rejected as non starters, but he is generally right on fiscal issues.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI agree, but offer an additional observation: You point out that "If a candidate isn’t talking about entitlement transformation, he’s unserious." You were presumably thinking about Republicans when you wrote this, but there's a Democrat in the race too. Obama is a candidate, and he isn't talking about entitlement transformation, but he's dead serious about getting reelected. He's just unserious about anything else.
Maybe our culture is too far gone, but I choose to believe that a message from whoever gets the Republican nomination that focuses on the unimaginable debt increases of the last four years and that pledges not to sell out the future but to restore the country to fiscal sanity by shrinking the government and living within our means would resonate with millions of voters.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI hate to say it but 'our culture' is too far gone. More to the point, the sovereign of this nation, We the People, long long ago decided that we didn't care about our own foundational Law. In wilful ignorance and denial we have allowed the ministers we hire to run the gov't to claim that the Constitution allows them to do any durn fool thing they want to do, buying many of us with various gimmes. The only solution is to actually follow the Constitution, and now. Doing so would abolish the various grossly unConstitutional Fed agencies that are ruining our economy: EPA, OSHA, Depts of Labor and Educ, etc etc. Do so, and businesses of all size will flourish, wealth will spread, debt will disappear, the poor will benefit from greatly increased employment and entrepeneurial opportunities they long have been unjustly denied.
But there's no way that's going to happen. An incremental approach to shrinking the gov't, as unlikely as even that is to happen, will not work quickly enough to stave off the collapse of our and the world's economy, massive credit collapse, worldwide depression that we will not be anywhere near as well positioned to live thru as the '30's. When the food and gas trucks stop rolling then we'll really have hit the wall. Only a drastic return to the Constitution has a hope of preventing it, and we are too blind and in too much denial to demand it.
This does not end well. Get out of the cities. Cash in your 'paper money'. Buy guns, ammo, arable land with running water. Get what you'll need to live when the food trucks stop rolling. Hope that other nations are as badly affected as we are so they can't attack while we're flat on our back.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'm frightened Paul will win Iowa.
First off his foreign policy opinions scare me.
Secondly if he wins Iowa, all we'll here from the MSM is how racist, bible thumping and gun clinging the republicans are.
Paul winning Iowa could be enough to push the independent vote into Prez O's camp.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"all we'll here from the MSM is how racist, bible thumping and gun clinging the republicans are."
An easy prediction, since that is also what we'll here if Romney wins Iowa, or Santorum, or Perry, or Gingrich, or Huntsman...
Saying that the MSM will depict Republicans as racist, bible-thumping, gun-clingers is like predicting that my barber will tell me I need a haircut. What I don't understand is Republicans who after all this time are still trying to figure out what combination of things they can do to get the MSM to give them a fair shake when running against the Democrats. Hint: They're going to call us names no matter what we do. And those names will have no bearing on what WE did or deserve but entirely on what their instincts and focus groups say will tar us most effectively. Just vote for who you want because the media will say the same horrible things about us regardless.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAmen! Steyn is right on about the need to cut the waste from the defense budget, notably throwing millions of dollars at governments and leaders who use them against our own service members. Not only that, but the high cost of services and products purchased by the military. This is outrageous, both for the military not buying competitively, and of the seller/supplier for charging outrageous prices because it is the military. Not only that, but military and civilian workers in overseas countries, especially the EU, pay the highest rents, when comparing the rents paid by local nationals for the same size of housing. Every time someone moves out, the costs go up according to what the military is paying. Time to move a lot of the operations back to US soil, scaling down all but a very few large bases to have forward-operating bases in case of conflict.
There is also a need to quit acting like waste is nothing more than pocket change. Those days, if we truly had any, are way over. Congress acts as if it is no big deal and why are we so upset by a few billion dollars waste? I realize to them it is only cents on the dollar, but to us taxpayers, it adds up quickly!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseUsing the power of Google I found this article in about 10 seconds of searching: External Link
I'm not calling Steyn a neocon (he's my fav on NRO), nor am I a Ronulan. I'm just one of millions of conservative Republicans searching for a presidential candidate that is in favor of a smaller federal government.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWell, that certainly begins to get at who's been interested in what for how long. Coincidentally, 2006 was also the first year of Medicare Part D, the new multi-trillion dollar entitlement program brought to you by the Karl Rove and the Bush Administration, backed by the Republican Establishment.
I doubt the Weekly Standard is incapable of doing even this much research.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseBut, if you read through that "article", you find this subtle shift: "Are ever-growing entitlement and military expenditures really consistent with a free country?" All of a sudden, he tosses military expenditures into the mix.
Also, he still doesn't say anything about eliminating entitlements or even thoroughly reforming them - just that it needs to be talked about. So, the question is still out there about whether he would merely reduce the military in order to prop up entitlements for a while.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt could mean he wants to reduce both? (I am not in favor of reducing defense spending, however) According to CNN he said he wants to cut all entitlements by 20%: External Link
Again, found using my amazing Google-fu. What I did was type in "Ron Paul on entitlements" into the search bar. I'm not reciting talking points, because I'm only marginally in his camp as the only candidate wanting to shrink the size and scope of the federal government.
I think National Review is doing a disservice to the process by whack-a-moling every candidate out there that isn't Romney. Oh, I know there's Santorum, but he's only being built-up to negate Paul because the whack-a-mole machine stopped working on it's own. My guess is if Santorum threatens Romney all of a sudden we'll see a magical Hunstman surge that must be combated by the combined forces of the NRO punditry.
Ron Paul is not a perfect candidate, heck, I'd say he's a bad candidate (I'm not a fan of his foreign policy). But in this TEA Party age, all the GOP could field was this lot? Not a single small government conservative? Consider me an issue voter, and my single biggest concern for our country is our leviathan federal government. Do I agree with Paul's foreign policy, no. Do I agree with his fanciful view on Iran, heck no. Do I think he's the best torch carrier for smaller government (no I think he hurts the cause in some ways). But, I'll still vote for him. Because I can't vote for Romney and none of the others have a shot, not like any of them want to shrink the government.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"But in this TEA Party age, all the GOP could field was this lot? Not a single small government conservative?"
Amen, brother.
I really do think you're giving NRO way too much credit for their ability to affect all that's gone on, though. Each of the not-Romney's has imploded on their own.
And, I wasn't assuming you were a Paulbot. :)
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHe would return Medicare to the states and let younger people opt out of social security. This would be done gradually. The money we save from fighting BS wars in the Middle East would help transition the change.
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