Posted on 09/24/2009 10:44:24 AM PDT by freepersunite
Long before he danced with the stars, then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay two-stepped all over fellow Texas Rep. Ron Paul's hopes of overseeing the Federal Reserve, according to an account provided by House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank.
In a broader interview with my colleagues Phil Mattingly and Benton Ives, Frank offered this assessment of how DeLay and other GOP leaders tiptoed around giving Paul -- who wants to abolish the Fed -- the gavel of the subcommittee with jurisdiction over it:
"In 2003, Ron Paul was in line to be chairman of the Domestic Monetary Policy Subcommittee of this committee. Specifically and solely to frustrate Ron from being the chairman, they merged the Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy with the Subcommittee on International Monetary Policy. Ron Paul then complained to Tom DeLay, and Tom DeLay told [then-Chairman Mike] Oxley [R-Ohio] 'Don't change it' ... [T]wo years later, even though they merged the two subcommittees in the progression, Ron was then again ready to be chairman, this time of the combined one. [Then-Rep. Deborah] Pryce [R-Ohio] was dragooned to come back and assert a subcommittee chairmanship ... Ron at that point said to me, 'I guess I have to wait for you to be chairman for me to have any authority around here.' The Republican Party was a staunch defender of the Fed against Ron Paul."
Paul and Frank share an interest in auditing the Fed, though neither Frank nor any other member of the House has signed onto Paul's bill to repeal the Federal Reserve Act.
The general outlines of Frank's account -- though not DeLay's hand -- were confirmed by Republican sources. Paul said he didn't recall DeLay's involvement, but he acknowledged Republican leaders didn't want him to have the subcommittee chairmanship.
"They just got rid of one" subcommittee, Paul said of the first time he was passed over. "They wouldn't have enjoyed me being chairman."
But Paul has a defender in the current top Republican on the Financial Services Committee, Rep. Spencer Bachus of Alabama, who appointed him to the leading spot on the subcommittee with Republicans in the minority.
"There are people who said 'Is this the best thing to do?' I felt like it was," Bachus said. "I'm glad I appointed him. I have no regret."
And I care about what this guy thinks for what reason? De Lay hasn’t been around for sometime and Ron Paul is well Ron Paul
What a shock. /sarc
Ping
Yes, Ron Paul IS Ron Paul... the BEST friend the Constitution and the Republic HAVE in Congress. Your problem with him would be...???
props to Spencer Baucus. if the Republicans win the congress I wonder if he will support Ron for Chairman :))
Ron Paul also is lousy on foreign policy. Some things he is fine on but he will get us slaughtered with his nonapproach. Isolationism is a long dead effort. Transportation and other technolgies make it a dangerous world to put one’s head in the sand
Where on earth did you come up with THAT quaint notion, that Ron Paul is an isolationist? What he IS is a NON-INTERVENTIONIST. Which is a horse of a whole ‘nother color. We elect a President to be the Chief Executive of and FOR the United States, not president of the world. Major difference there. Our President has NO legitimate authority to send troops anywhere except in response to direct attacks on THE UNITED STATES. None whatsoever. However, in responding to direct attacks, the President should (and RP would) use whatever massive strength were needed to permanently eliminate the threat and the attackers. He would have played to WIN and then come home, not maintain a presence somewhere for decades to come.
As another believer in the Just War theory, I can only commend Dr. Paul for his CONSTITUTIONAL stance. As one who has seen what we’ve been doing firsthand, I must commend him for wanting to bring our troops HOME to defend OUR borders, something no OTHER President (or former candidate) seems to have any interest in doing.
And CURRENTLY, with the Usurper-in-Chief we have now, I do have to question HIS motives for keeping our troops OUT OF THE COUNTRY at a time when they might be needed to put down an executive branch run amok.
So anyway you slice it, you are wrong, and wrong in this case can mean DEAD wrong.
His problem is that Rep. Ron Paul is by far "the BEST friend the Constitution and the Republic HAVE in Congress".
But he’s an ISOLATIONIST. Isn’t that what they all say? As if the Constitution doesn’t mean anything when it’s time to go play mean in someone else’s backyard.
I bet most of the neocon Congressional Republicans would rather remain in the minority & have Nancy Pelosi as Speaker instead of having Rep. Paul play a prominent role in chairing committees or whatever.
Isolationist Non-interventionist get real they are exactly the same thing.
Slice it any way you want. On some things the man is a lunatic. Now the fact that he is really a libertarian running as a republican may explain most of that. but he is no means conservative
ROFLMAO
Yepper, it's lousy to be against intervening in the affairs of foreign nations.
It's lousy to be against sending billions of taxpayer dollars abroad to nations that hate us, and often winds up in the hands of terrorists.
It's lousy to believe that we can trade with other nations without actually intervening into their internal affairs.
It's lousy to believe America should come first. (Now that one is really lousy.)
And finally, the most lousy of all lousies, is to NOT know that non-intervention into the affairs of foreign nations means exactly the same thing as isolationism. Anyone can look it up in the dictionary to readily see the definitions are IDENTICAL. /sarc
Ok, what else is lousy?
So you SUPPORT stationing troops in 170 countries around the world? At OUR expense? Providing a MASSIVE subsidy to trade competitors so that they can spend THEIR money on subsidizing THEIR INDUSTRIES instead of paying for and maintaining their own defense? Why? And WHERE is the authority for this granted to government in the Constitution?
No, you haven’t a CLUE as to foreign policy. And, no, isolationism and non-intervention are NOT the same thing at all. You are either misinformed or lying to yourself and trying to lie to me. I can’t say which.
As for “conservative,” Ron Paul is more in tune with CONSERVING the Constitution and the Republic than you could ever HOPE to be, what with your “knowledge” and priorities.
You haven’t figured out that the same tax and spend, big government, world government, interventionist, liberals run the state department? So, while you reject their views on the size, role and funding of government, you embrace, blindly, gullibly, their management of our foreign policy? Are you that naive to believe that under Republican presidents our state department if full of CONSERVATIVES?
Isolationist Non-interventionist get real they are exactly the same thing.
Oh, good grief. This is sad. Here is the truth, via wordnet.
isolationism n : a policy of nonparticipation in international economic and political relations
nonintervention n : a foreign policy of staying out of other countries' disputes
Pretty simple. Noninterventionists are against getting involved in other countries conflicts, and isolationists are against having any relations with other countries of any kind, including trading with them. That you think they are the same is simply amazing. They are actually almost exact opposites considering just how hard it is to have real relations with other nations, and certainly any which are beneficial to us, when we are always at war with half of them.
ping
I suppose you would have slurred “Mr. Republican” Senator Taft as “an isolationist,” too.
Laughed your head off, I see.
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