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On reducing the national debt, improving the economy and eliminating income tax:
(1) We have enough money in the military budget to bring our troops home worldwide without incurring additional expense.
(2) If we bring the troops home, they will be purchasing goods and services from local merchants instead of Korean clothing, Japanese groceries, drinking at German pubs, etc. They will also need places to live, phone service, hair cuts, and cars.
(3) All this puts more money into US wallets.
(4) It will eliminate military expenditures for electricity, paper clips, and rental property in foreign nations.
(5) That means our military budget is reduced even further.
(6) Our troops would be available to help out in natural disasters (Katrina, Andrew, Mt. St. Helens, etc), reducing the FEMA-type costs. In addition, they could help watch the borders and reduce illegal immigration.
(7) Reducing illegal immigration means our schools, hospitals and social service agencies aren't overburdened taking care of non-citizens. Again, this results in cost reductions.
(8) If we stop handing out money to "aid" foreign governments who despise us, this reduces the Federal budget even more.
(9) If we drop the "war on drugs" nonsense, we will save many MORE billions of dollars. Face it, prohibition didn't work, and neither does D.A.R.E. We will have fewer "prisoners" to support. Our court system will be relieved of prosecution of thousands of drug-related charges a year (if you doubt this, go check out the criminal docket on any given day at your district court). A number of other countries (eg, Netherlands) have found that eliminating criminal penalties on drugs do not cause the problems one might think.
(10) Personal Income Tax only accounts for about 1/3 of the money collected by the Feds. Corporations would still pay taxes. Road taxes and gas taxes would still be collected. Tarriffs would be collected. If we rolled our expenditures back to the same level as 2000, we would not need to collect personal income taxes AT ALL. Nor would we need a Federal Sales Tax.
(11) People would have more money in their pockets. This would encourage them to save a little, pay off their personal debts, and put some into retirement plans. Maybe they could even afford medical insurance! What a concept!
What specifically about that sounds "loony" to you?
Hey, if all else fails, maybe we could have a fund raiser to pay off the deficit. I believe Ron Paul's supporters can pull off anything!
Oh - and on the abortion issue: Dr. Paul is personally anti-abortion. It started when as a young resident he wandered into an operating room where they were doing a 2nd trimester abortion. In those days they didn't kill the fetus first. He watched them do the C-section, remove the 2-lb fetus, and put it into a bucket at the end of the room. It tried to breathe and cry. Everyone in the room pretended it wasn't there. (And by the way, this happened BEFORE Roe v. Wade.)
However, abortion has nothing to do with the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. It is up to the individual State to decide how to handle it. California may permit abortions; Mississippi may not. Read the CONSTITUTION. It will help you understand what the Federal Government is supposed to do ... and most importantly, what it is NOT supposed to do.
