It would be a mistake to just assume Rand Paul's political views are identical to those of his father Ron Paul's--as a matter of fact they diverge completely on the issue of Congressional pork, as this article discusses.I side with Ron Paul on this one. It's actually a good thing when a member of Congress brings home tax money for his district to build a new library, repair a road, build a new school, etc. As a matter of fact it's exactly what he or she should be doing, and remember these things cost the tax payer a fraction of one Stealth Fighter Bomber or drone attack plane or whatever.
As with most things, the tea partiers who are the loudest and most against 'pork barrelling' are pretty much ignorant on the topic: the vast majority of all tax payer 'waste' goes to the military industrial industry complex. I'd rather have my tax dollar going to a local company to build a new classroom than to Boeing to build a new trillion dollar attack plane to bomb people.
Experienced members of Congress bringing home money to fix a bridge in their district? That's not waste, it's progress.
A Foreign Policy of Freedom: Peace, Commerce, and Honest Friendship
3 comments:
I side with Ron Paul too, but I am an attorney and I went to law school and studied WHY we have separation of powers (to keep the executive representative of the people, not a tyrant) and know 'earmarks' are being sold as a swear word in order to centralize power in the executive. I think Ron Paul has the more principled stance, and that playing to the earmark issue is actually a mild form of pandering. However, I support Rand as being right on a ton of the key issues.
thanks for your comment anonymous. Are you suggesting that because you are an attorney you are the definitive authority on this subject? I don't think the answer is necessarily black or white, is it?
I actually think it is black and white, and it isn't by any means my being an attorney that gives me the firm belief in that, but having studied the subject in depth. I could have been going for poli sci or could have been someone like my grandfather who never went further than fourth grade but read everything he could get his hands on. I was trying to let Rand off the hook (I'm actually kind of miffed about this), not brag about being an attorney.
This isn't a 'difference of opinion' -- in my opinion. It is more like a shell game. In my opinion. "Earmark" has been turned into a knee jerk 'bad' by people who want a super strong executive.
Now, you may differ on whether we should have a king or a president, but I don't think anyone who studies earmarks can differ on the fact that getting rid of them would empower the executive at the expense of checks and balances. Earmarks don't add money to a spending bill, they say where part of what is otherwise a blank check sent to the executive goes. Without them, administrators allocate the money behind closed doors in the executive branch.
You probably already know this, but 'earmarks' has been turned into such a dirty word, many people don't know this. When Ron Paul mentioned it, the whole idea snapped in place for me, because I had studied it, years ago.
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