Posted on 10/12/2012 1:31:28 PM PDT by Innovative
Texas Republican congressman Ron Paul pointedly refused to endorse his party's presidential contender, Mitt Romney, arguing that neither he nor President Barack Obama would make necessary cuts to public spending that would avert a fiscal catastrophe.
"No," the iconoclastic Libertarian bluntly told CNBC’s "Futures Now," when asked about whether he was prepared to endorse Romney. He accused both the former Massachusetts governor and the president of being captive to similar interests.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
I felt very much the same, spent some time researching his actions as governor and was quite relieved to find a great deal more conservative actions that I had realized. You might find this comforting as well.
The Club for Growth on Romney’s term as Governor, quotes regarding cutting size of government, entitlement reform, tax reform:
“On balance, his record comes out more positive than negative, especially when one considers that average spending increased only 2.22% over his four years, well below the population plus inflation benchmark of nearly 3%.”
“Governor Romney receives credit for reducing actual spending unilaterally in Fiscal Year FY2003, even though he entered office halfway into the fiscal year, because of the tremendous spending cuts he forced down the Legislature’s throat in January of 2003. Facing a $650 million deficit he inherited from the previous administration, Romney convinced the unfriendly State Legislature to grant him unilateral power to make budget cuts and unveiled $343 million in cuts to cities, healthcare, and state agencies. This fiscal discipline continued in 2004, in which Romney continued to slash “nearly every part of state government” to close a $3 billion deficit.”
“To his credit, Romney attempted to cut down on government spending by streamlining many duplicative and wasteful elements of Beacon Hill. Some of his more ambitious proposals were rejected by his über-liberal Legislature. These include: his plans to overhaul the wasteful Boston Municipal Court and close underused courthouses; merge the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority with the Highway Department; decentralize management of the University of Massachusetts; streamline the Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission; and phase out the obsolete Worcester State Hospital where employees outnumber patients nearly 3 to 1.”
“Governor Romney successfully consolidated the social service and public health bureaucracy and restructured the Metropolitan District Commission. Romney even eliminated half of the executive branch’s press positions, saving $1.2 million. He also used his emergency fiscal powers to make $425 million worth of cuts in 2006, taking particular aim at local earmarks, instead of allowing the Legislature to dip into the state’s $1.2 billion rainy day fund. While there is no question that Governor Romney’s initial fiscal discipline slacked off in the second half of his term, on balance, he imposed some much-needed fiscal discipline on a very liberal Massachusetts Legislature.”
“Romney fought for legislation that would bring Massachusetts’ welfare system up to date with federal standards by increasing the number of hours each week recipients must work and establishing a five-year limit for receiving benefits. Much to his credit and to the dismay of many Massachusetts liberals, Romney successfully forced Medicaid recipients to make co-payments for some services and successfully pushed for legislative action forcing new state workers to contribute 25% of their health insurance costs, up from 15%. Governor Romney also deserves praise for proposing to revolutionize the Massachusetts state pension system by moving it from a defined benefit system to a defined contribution system.”
“In May of 2004, Mitt Romney proposed cutting the state’s income tax rate from 5.3% to 5.0%—a measure Massachusetts voters had approved in a 2000 referendum, but was blocked by the State Legislature in 2002. The proposed tax cut would have provided $675 million in relief over a year and a half. When the Massachusetts Legislature refused to budge, Romney proposed the same tax cut in 2005 and again in 2006 with no success. Romney was more successful when he took on the State Legislature for imposing a retroactive tax on capital gains earnings. After a bloody fight, Romney succeeded in passing a bill preventing the capital gains tax from being applied retroactively, resulting in a rebate of $275 million for capital gains taxes collected in 2002.”
more at link....
http://www.clubforgrowth.org/whitepapers/?subsec=137&id=905
Actually, Ron Paul is not a nit-wit. I agree with most of his positions, especially the position of the need to cut down government drastically and to take control of the Federal Reserve before our US dollars become complete trash. I would have felt much better if Romney or Ryan explained to people how the printing of the Fed is acting like a huge tax on the Middle Class and on the poor, and this de facto tax by itself destroys the Obama talking points of “fighting” for the Middle Class, before even getting to the Obamacare taxes.
Ron Paul has done more to divide the Republican party than any other living politician I know.
Obama has done more to UNITE the Republican party than any other living polician I know.
Ironic, aint it?
Yes, Ron has some good points. And sadly, he is also wigged out on others. I can’t back him, and I try not to encourage others to do so. Ron destroys his good side, with his bad side, so at the end of the day, I have to say I don’t really care what he supports. I don’t care what his opinion is. He’s useless to me. He leads folks astray more than he leads them in the right direction. Sorry, but that’s my take on it.
Good. The owner of this site doesn’t endorse Romney either. Funny, the Mitt cheerleaders don’t seem to be jumping down his throat.
Ron Paul has done more to divide the Republican party than any other living politician I know.
Obama has done more to UNITE the Republican party than any other living polician I know.
Ironic, aint it?
My point is that I keep hearing this same, tired, shopworn bullshit every four years. EVERY four years since ‘84, the GOP runs another idiot RINO with a brilliant pedigree of northeastern liberal connections, Ivy League degrees and so on and EVERY four years, mealy-mouthed propagandists like you pop out of the woodwork like bedbugs, giving these same excuses why we should vote for “our” ripe-suck candidate, because their ripe-suck candidate is worse.
After decades of this BS, I’m sorry, I can’t hear you. Ryan’s performance last night cemented that fact. Ryan was supposed to be the “man with the math” and last night, all I saw was another step-n-fetchit junior-league politician. I strongly suspect that, in fact, Ryan can’t do math, he has some junior staffer doing it for him. If I’d been in that debate, I would have pulled the whole thing in on Biden’s head by telling the audience that Biden LIED when he said that he (Biden) didn’t vote for either war - when in fact, he voted for BOTH of them. Ryan let that one slip right on by... why? Because the elites don’t like to really draw blood on each other.
I’m not a Libertarian. I just am smart enough to see that there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between two elitist stooges from Harvard who want to feed on the carcass of America. Ryan’s budget plan relies on business plans by the Underpants Gnomes to achieve his rates of GDP growth which the US has rarely sustained for any appreciable time, and goes way too easy on spending cuts. At least Paul had the balls to call out the level of spending cuts actually necessary to start talking about getting down to sane budget levels quickly. Ryan doesn’t. Romney isn’t. No one is.
I estimate that the US tips over before 2016 under Obama and maybe a year or two later under Romney/Ryan as their plans stand now. I don’t see the GOP in Congress getting serious about spending cuts, and I don’t see the GOP talking about replacing Crybaby Boehner anytime soon, either.
Since he is not seeking re-election, there isn’t much the GOP can do to him, but his son is still in the party. It should be made clear to the son that how his father acts when the party needs his endorsement will have a direct effect on his son’s political future.
Ron Paul has always struck me as being about the same age as Ralph Nader.
All this doesn’t matter, though... RP is very yesterday, and what he says won’t even affect such die-hards as FReepers.
I support PRINCIPLED left and right wingers like RP, Kuchinich, Paul Wellstone, and Taranto for Congresscritters. I believe that havin their principled voices there is very important. However, as president - NO NON NO
“It should be made clear to the son that how his father acts when the party needs his endorsement will have a direct effect on his son’s political future.”
A very sensible point!
>> I dislike Ron Paul, but I don’t blame him for not endorsing Romney.
I like Ron Paul and I’ll blame him for facilitating Hell.
“I just am smart enough to see that there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between two elitist stooges from Harvard who want to feed on the carcass of America.”
Sure you are, oh, so smart...not being able to tell the difference between Obama and Romney.
Read:
The Stakes Are High. The threat of Obama’s second term.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2944173/posts
We elected Geo. W. Bush as a supposed conservative. We already knew that the entitlement mess was unsustainable.
So what did his administration do? Push for Medicare Part D. He made the situation worse, not better. Some conservative.
His father raised taxes. Some conservative.
So now... you’re coming along to tell me that Romney is going to be some sort of panacea against Obama, despite Romney’s state health plan being a prototype for Obama’s, despite Romney being not terribly believable on this pro-gun rhetoric, nor terribly assuring on his outlook on selecting judges and justices.
Would Obama be a wreck in his second term? Hell yes. This we know.
But you people are peddling a point you cannot prove: That Romney would be some sort of substantial improvement over Obama. Romney’s record does not support this leap of logic. You only *suppose* this to be true.
The article you cite is codswallop. The author makes no case for Romney, only against Obama. Let’s postulate for the sake of brevity, that everything he says about Obama and his style of government is true (because it is). WHAT IS ROMNEY GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?
Romney hasn’t said anything about disassembling the overwhelming bureaucracy in DC. He hasn’t said anything about rolling back environmental regs that are choking the private sector. Or stupid and unattainable CARB standards which are now used as national EPA standards. None of the root of regulatory excess is being targeted by Romney.
Romney is just talking in very big picture terms. That means he won’t do jack. The only thing Romney has said specifically that he’s going to eliminate is the subsidy to CPB and PBS. That’s good. But I’ll believe it when I see it, because even tho the amount of money is low, that entire cluster is a great example of what is wrong with DC. Programs like CPB and PBS, as insipid as their programming is, have constituencies who show up on Congress’ doorstep, wailing and crying for money. And Congress approves said money. How is Romney going to actually cut CPB/PBS subsidy when Congress controls the purse strings?
The stakes are high regardless of who gets into office, and I’m here telling you people that Romney & Ryan’s plans, even if they get everything they’ve said they want, delay what is becoming increasingly inevitable by a year, perhaps two. That’s if and only if they get everything they want - and they won’t, because the GOP won’t have a filibuster-proof lock on the US senate. It’s still an open question whether the GOP can even capture the majority of the seats in the Senate. If they don’t, I’ve got a newsflash for you: Romney and Ryan will get next to nothing done. There will be no serious spending cutting unless Congress decides to all get drunk and stay home, in which case the automatic spending cuts kick in.
“It’s his EGO, not his “unshakable convictions”.”
I don’t have the ability to look into a man’s heart, as you and God can. My superpowers are elsewhere.
“I don’t have the ability to look into a man’s heart, as you and God can”
Funny — yet you claim that you can tell that Ron Paul has “unshakable convictions”.
One can judge people by their behavior — his behavior isn’t a demonstration of “unshakable convictions” — if it were, he wouldn’t be effectively supporting Obama. His behavior is a demonstration of a huge EGO, where it is more important to him, than the survival of the USA, as we know it.
And anyone can see what YOUR behavior and statements demonstrate, without my having to specifically state it.
Recommend you read this:
The Stakes Are High. The threat of Obama’s second term.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2944173/posts
Already read it. Perhaps you didn’t see my reply to the other poster who sent me the same link.
And my reply: Makes a nice case against Obama. Doesn’t make a case FOR Romney.
Which goes straight to my point: Elections in this country have become an exercise in voting against the evil of two lessors.
And the GOP likes it that way - they always want to run someone who doesn’t suck *quite* as much as the other guy.
You have amazing abilities to look inside the human heart and see the invisible (and rationalize). It is powerful and I am amazed by your powers.
Mortals, like the rest of us, can benefit by your kindness, as you continue to reveal the unseen to us. Thank you very much.
I’ve heard Dr. Paul also say that he doesn’t belive in endorsements; that people shouldn’t vote a certain way because a celebrity or another politician says to; that people should do some research and vote for the candidate who truly represents their best interests.
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