Does He Hate Big Government Or Not?

The issue of Ron Paul and his excessive earmarks has become a more popular talking point during the last few weeks.

He is accused of excessive earmarking, while professing small government.

Ron Paul offers this explanation with Neil Cavuto.



Paul explains that earmarks are necessary and that even if we eliminated them completely, the budget would only be cut by one percent.


Sounds reasonable? Yes? If it only makes for one percent, what does that say about our budget?

Paul insists that all he is doing is earmarking and requesting money for his constituents because that is what his job is. He further protests that he has also voted against each bill with those earmarks, that coincidentally passes anyway.

Ron Paul insists that he is against big government and wasteful spending but what he is really saying is that some things are waste, while things he supports are not wasteful.

At the end of the video Paul seems to suggest that military spending is wasteful. He has repeatedly called for the US to abandon their missions in the Middle East and to close up shop, insisting that it is somehow possible to ignore the world.

There are two kinds of evil in this world - those who do evil things and those who see evil things being done and do nothing about it. Paul falls into the latter category.

He admits that the earmarks are wasteful but his strategy is to tack on his earmarks to those bills which he knows will end up passing anyway.

Paul denounces all interference in the free market and cries foul whenever the government “chooses favorites,” but he has pushed for certain benefits himself. He can argue that tax credits don’t constitute subsidies, but even libertarian tax economists disagree. 

The congressman also provides a shaky defense -- to say the least -- of his earmark requests. It appears, from the way he operates, that he doesn’t want to do his own dirty work. He makes spending requests and votes against them while other lawmakers support the measures, bringing the money to his district anyway. 

There are far simpler ways to make his point if he really thinks the earmark system fosters corruption. One obvious example: he could abstain from earmarks altogether.

Article here.

This is a cute little scam Paul has going on here. On one hand he can vote for adding big government, getting goodies for his district by attaching  it to bills that are guaranteed to pass, afterwards he can then vote against the bill all while making the claim he has, "never voted for any earmarks."

Why do people support this man again? His excuse for putting the earmarks there in the first place is equivalent to a child telling their parents, "Well [insert name here] did it, so I thought I should too, even though I know it's wrong."

Paul supporters sound exactly like liberals when they try and make this one percent argument. Either you believe in pork spending or you don't. They simple go around lecturing everyone about how pure they are and how they know the Constitution, how the government needs to get out of everyone's lives but ironically the man they support is one of the biggest abusers of wasteful spending.

Of course, I write this in absolute vain since even when presented with logic or facts, Paul supporters just fall back on their talking points and end up resorting to calling me or others who disagree with them RINOs and we are all ignorant.

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