Q&A: RON PAUL
Transcript: Ron Paul On Iraq, Social Security And More

© National Journal Group Inc.
Friday, Nov. 16, 2007

National Journal's Linda Douglass sat down with GOP presidential contender and Texas Rep. Ron Paul. This is a transcript of their conversation. Audio of the full show is also available.

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Q: Well, first I want to say, welcome, Congressman Ron Paul, to "National Journal On Air." It is absolutely great to have you with us today, and your views really do stand out from all the other candidates, so I really want to spend our short time together asking you about your views. First of all, let me ask you about your view of foreign policy. You are very well-known for wanting to pull United States troops out of Iraq, but what about other countries where United States troops are stationed?

Paul: I follow a policy called nonintervention, which was the policy of the Founding Fathers, and really what's in our Constitution. We don't have authority to be the policemen of the world and get involved in other places, and the strong advice was stay out of the internal affairs of others and stay out of entangling alliances. So I don't want to be involved any place. I would bring troops home. And besides, we're going broke. We can't afford them. So not only would I disengage in the Middle East, it would be Europe, Japan, as well as Korea.

Q: And when you say you would disengage in the Middle East, does that also mean ending our strong military support and alliance with Israel?

Paul: Yeah, but we would still be allies in the sense that we would be friends and trade and travel and talk with them and hopefully help them when they need help, but not militarily. But you have to think that the enemies of Israel get three times as much aid as Israel gets, so it would be a pretty good wash, especially for Israel. I think they would regain their sovereignty. They could make up their own minds about how to defend their country. They wouldn't have to ask us if they wanted to have peace treaties with their neighbors. Sometimes they do and we object, so it would really release the Israelis to take care of their own business.

Q: Your Republican opponents talk about the war on terrorism. How would you fight that war?

Paul: Well, we have to realize what the war is. So far, the serious nature of the war means that 19 people who were bent on suicide with razor blades have turned our country upside down, undermined our civil liberties and caused us to do exactly the wrong thing -- that is, invade and occupy two more Arab countries, and that is the reason the radicals are able to gain strength. That's what motivates individuals to join al-Qaida. So I think we did everything wrong. So if you want to fight it, you want to prevent it. And you prevent it by having a sensible foreign policy.

Q: You know that there are those who believe that the United States government was somehow involved in 9/11, and some of those people support your candidacy. Do you agree with them?

Paul: I think our foolishness has lead to unintended consequences. But to directly participate in it? No, I think that's not plausible at all. And I think what they do is that they get confused if I complain about policy. They say, oh, that's blaming America. Well no, I'm blaming a few people who happen to have a policy that has led us astray, and that's at fault. But Americans aren't to blame and we didn't cause it. It's sort of like blaming the person who got murdered for being murdered. But you do want to understand motives. You want to understand the nature of the enemy, and that's what I emphasize.

Q: You would -- talking about domestic policies now -- eliminate the income tax. How would you then pay for services that are provided by the government?

Paul: Well, most of the services and most of the expenditures of the government aren't strictly designated by the Constitution. So you want to wean the government, wean the people off from this dependency, because it has led to overdependency, not self-reliance, and a bankruptcy. And that's why our dollar is on the ropes, because we can't afford it. So we just print the money, and we overtax, and we overborrow, and then overprint, and this has led to a very serious situation. And we can't turn that off immediately, and I realize that. And if you just got rid of the income tax tomorrow, it would just make the deficit that much worse, and then they'd print more money. So you'd have to get a consensus of people saying you have to cut the spending.

But my approach is to reverse the trend. If you get to reverse the trend, it would restore some confidence to the markets and I would start with foreign policy. I wouldn't start with any domestic program, where people become dependent. The elderly who have been promised to be taken care of -- although that was maybe not the best way to do it -- you don't start with them. You take care of them. And the only way you can try to fulfill those promises is to stop spending overseas to the tune of not a couple billion -- hundreds of billions of dollars you could save. You could help those who are dependent. You don't have to throw anybody out on the streets. At the same time, you can get young people out of the system and work toward the day where you absolutely don't need an income tax. Most of our history we didn't have an income tax.

Q: You mean out of the Social Security system?

Paul: Well that, yeah. Get out of Social Security and, of course, getting out of the tax system. If we ever got our government reduced to constitutional size... We've only had it since 1913. We haven't even had it 100 years, and people aren't very happy with it.

Q: But if you were to strip the government down to just its bare essentials, that is, maintaining a military, and... I guess the question is I don't know what other services you were thinking that the federal government should provide, but how would you pay for those? Where would that money come from?

Paul: Well, we'd look to how did we pay for them, you know, in our first 150 years. We did it through tariffs. We did it through user fees. We did it through different types of fees. But the government was much smaller, and there was always enough money. It was only when they went to war that they needed an income tax.

I mean, they proposed the income tax in the Civil War. That was found unconstitutional. And then they had the amendment, and we've been having an income tax. And we've had war, you know: first World War, second World War, Korea, Vietnam. So the income tax just encourages big spending. Instead of really helping poor people, it helps corporations who get control. So you fight wars. The corporations make the money. You have housing bubbles created for poor people and the building companies and the mortgage companies make the money, and then the people lose their houses. So even with the good intentions, it really doesn't work very well.

Q: How would the safety net work for the poor? How would they access government services? How would you qualify?

Paul: Depends on where we are in the state. I mean ideally, the poor would be taken care of by a market economy that would make it so much healthier. I mean, we didn't have any of these things before the Depression. They blamed the Depression on capitalism, and that was a serious mistake. So they said everybody has to have a safety net, which has actually created more poor people. They've resorted to inflation, which destroys the middle class and undermines the poor. So to help the poor, you have to have a sound economic system. But if you have somebody that doesn't make it: families, friends, neighbors, churches charities. But there would be so few.

But once you design a program where everybody is involved, you eventually lower the standard of living for everybody. Right now, the standard of living is going down for the lower 50 percent of our people, and they're very annoyed by it. But they don't quite understand why they're being punished. Sometimes they say, well, if we only had more stuff from the government it would solve the problem. But the fact is the government has been the redistributor of wealth that has created these inequities.

Q: You would do away with several government agencies, certainly the IRS and the Department of Education. Which government agencies would remain under a Paul administration?

Paul: Well, not too many if we're talking about idealism. But you know, I'm also a realist, too. So, I mean, you look to what departments were there in the early years. We existed with Treasury and Justice Department, Defense and State Department, but you just don't need...

Q: The other ones would be gone?

Paul: Well, I mean, I can't get rid of them. There has to be a consensus. Ideally, if you had a free society and a constitutional government, you wouldn't have a Department of Education or Department of Energy. I mean, this serves special interests. And you wouldn't have this monstrosity called the Department of Homeland Security, which doesn't provide homeland security. It causes chaos. If you look at how well they handled the recovery program down in New Orleans -- I mean, central planning just doesn't work.

Q: You are someone who gets very strong support from some sectors of the Christian conservative community. You are pro-life and embrace certainly the values of the Christian conservative community. You also think that prostitution should be decriminalized and marijuana should be legalized. How does that work with that community? Why do you hold those views?

Paul: Well first off, I don't say it quite that way. But I do say the federal government should be out of it. There shouldn't be a war on drugs, and there shouldn't be federal laws dealing with prostitution in the states. Local community can deal with those problems. But basically those laws do the opposite. They cause more harm then they should.

But when I talk to the Christian community, I emphasize civil liberties as a whole. If they're interested in home schooling and prayer and being left alone and freedom of religious and freedom of speech, which they understand, you have to defend everybody's right to make their own choices if they don't hurt other people. Some people in religion and philosophy make bad choices, but we don't say you can't study communism because it's such an evil philosophy, or you can't pick a certain religion because it might lead to harm. You allow people to make freedom of choice -- and I use that in a social sense, too -- and in a free country, people are supposed to make their own decisions. You can't legislate virtue. And the home schoolers and Christian community has always been supportive of me in my own district.

Q: Final question, sir, I know you have to run. You have some very passionate supporters. Have you completely ruled our running as a third-party candidate if you don't get the Republican nomination?

Paul: I have zero plans for doing that. I have no intention. I think the system is so biased against democracy in the true sense of the word. You can't compete, you can't get on ballots, you can't get in the debates. And if you come to the conclusion that Republicans and Democrats aren't a whole lot different, we really have a one-party system. It's monopoly-controlled and it's rather strange that we go overseas killing others and our people dying for the so-called spreading of democracy, and yet here at home you don't have a fair shot at it if you don't work within the political structure.

Q: Well, very interesting, Dr. Paul. I hope we can have you back again sometime. Thank you so much.

Paul: Thank you very much. Bye-bye.

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