Ron Paul's Greatest Debate Performance Ever (10-18-2011)

COOPER: Texas Congressman Ron Paul. REP. RON PAUL (R-TX): I'm Congressman Ron Paul from Texas. I'm the champion of liberty. I am the only one that has offered a balanced budget in -- in a sincere method. And also, I present the case for a free society as being the best defense for peace and prosperity. (APPLAUSE) COOPER: Congressman Paul, you called (Herman Cain's 9-9-9) plan dangerous today. PAUL: Oh, it is, because it raises revenues, and the worst part about it, it's regressive. A lot of people aren't paying any taxes, and I like that. I don't think that we should even things up by raising taxes. So it is a regressive tax. So it's very, very dangerous. And it will raise more revenues. But the gentlemen asked the question -- he didn't even ask what we're talking about. He asked the question, what are you going to replace the income tax with? And I say nothing. That's what we should replace it with. (APPLAUSE) PAUL: But I do want to make a point that spending is a tax. As soon as the governments spend money, eventually it's a tax. Sometimes we put a direct tax on the people. Sometimes we borrow the money. And sometimes we print the money. And then when prices go up, like today, the wholesale price index went up 7 percent rate, and if you look at the free market, prices are going up 9 and 10 percent. So that is the tax. So, spending is the tax. That is the reason I offered the program, to cut $1 trillion out of the first year budget that I offer. (APPLAUSE) COOPER: If Obama's health plan is bad for the U.S., what is the alternative, and how will you implement it? Congressman Paul, is there any aspect of Obamacare that you would like to keep, whether it's keeping kids to stay on their parents' insurance until they're 26 or no pre-existing conditions? PAUL: Really not, because he's just adding on more government. There's been a lot of discussion about medicine, but it seems to be talking about which kind of government management is best. Our problem is we have too much. We've had it for 30, 40 years. We have Medicare. We have prescription drug programs. We have Medicaid. And what we need -- I mean, there's a pretty good support up here for getting rid of Obamacare, because it's a Democratic proposal, and we want to opt out. I think we'd all agree on COOPER: Congressman Paul, there's some Latino voters who believe that some of these strong anti-immigration laws -- anti-illegal immigration laws are actually anti-Latino laws. What do you say to them? PAUL: Well, I think some people do believe that. I think a fence is symbolic of that. And I can understand why somebody might look at that. But when we approach this immigration problem, we should look at the incentives and that -- or the mandates from the federal government saying that you must educate, you must give them free education. You have to remove these incentives. But I don't think the answer is a fence whatsoever. But in order to attract Latino votes, I think, you know, too long this country has always put people in groups. They penalize people because they're in groups, and then they reward people because they're in groups. But following up on what Newt was saying, we need a healthy economy, we wouldn't be talking about this. We need to se everybody as an individual. And to me, seeing everybody as an individual means their liberties are protected as individuals and they're treated that way and they're never penalized that way. So if you have a free and prosperous society, all of a sudden this group mentality melts away. As long as there's no abuse -- one place where there's still a lot of discrimination in this country is in our court systems. And I think the minorities come up with a short hand in our court system. COOPER: Congressman Paul, you were referenced directly. Thirty seconds. PAUL: Well, I would like to explain that rights don't come in bunches. Rights come as individuals, they come from a God, and they come as each individual has a right to life and liberty. But I might add about the border control and the Latino vote, is we lack resources there. I think we should have more border guards on it, a more orderly transition, and run it much better. But where are our resources? You know, we worry more about the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. We need to bring the guard units home and the units back here so we can have more personnel on our border. (APPLAUSE) COOPER: Congressman Paul, you oppose this (Yucca Mountain)? PAUL: Yes. Yes, I've -- I've opposed this. We've had votes in the Congress. There was a time when I voted with two other individuals, the two congressmen from Nevada. And I approach it from a state's rights position. What right does 49 states have to punish one state and say, "We're going to put our garbage in your state"? I think that's wrong. But I think it's very serious. I think it's very serious. But quite frankly, the government shouldn't be in the business of subsidizing any form of energy. And nuclear energy, I think, is a good source of energy, but they still get subsidies. Then they assume this responsibility. Then we as politicians and the bureaucrats get involved in this. And then we get involved with which state's going to get stuck with the garbage. So I would say, the more the free market handles this and the more you deal with property rights and no subsidies to any form of energy, the easier this problem would be solved. COOPER: Governor Romney, where do you stand on this? (APPLAUSE) ROMNEY: Congressman Paul was right on that. (APPLAUSE) I don't always agree with him, but I do on that. PERRY: Congressman Paul, you're correct when it comes to allowing the states to compete with each other. That is the answer to this. COOPER: Congressman Paul, you've been -- Congressman Paul, you've been critical of Governor Romney for -- for holding fundraisers with -- with Wall Streeters. Do you think he understands what the protest is about? Do you understand? PAUL: Well, I think Mr. Cain has blamed the victims. There's a lot of people that are victims of this business cycle. We can't blame the victims. But we also have to point -- I'd go to Washington as well as Wall Street, but I'd go over to the Federal Reserve. (APPLAUSE) They -- they create the financial bubbles. And you have to understand that you can't solve these problems if you don't know where these bubbles come from. But then, when the bailout came and supported by both parties, you have to realize, oh, wait, Republicans were still in charge. So the bailouts came from both parties. Guess who they bailed out? The big corporations of people who were ripping off the people in the derivatives market. And they said, oh, the world's going to come to an end unless we bail out all the banks. So the banks were involved, and the Federal Reserve was involved. But who got stuck? The middle class got stuck. They got stuck. They lost their jobs, and they lost their houses. If you had to give money out, you should have given it to people who were losing their mortgages, not to the banks. (APPLAUSE) CAIN: All I want to say is that representative Paul is partly right, but he's mixing problems here. It's more than one problem. Look, the people -- the banks -- yes, the banks and the businesses on Wall Street, yes, the way that was administered was not right. COOPER: I've got to give you 30 seconds. PAUL: Yes, the argument is it's -- the program was OK, but it was mismanaged. But I work on the assumption that government's not very capable of managing almost anything... (APPLAUSE) ... so you shouldn't put that much trust in the government. You have -- you have to trust the marketplace. And when the government gets involved, they have to deal with fraud. And how many people have gone to jail either in the government, Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, that participated in this? And nobody suffers the consequences. All these investigations, and yet the people who lose their jobs and lose their houses, it's their fault, according -- that's why they're on Wall Street. And we can't blame them. We have to blame the business cycle... COOPER: Time. PAUL: ... and the economic policies that led to this disaster. (APPLAUSE) COOPER: Congressman Paul, you've proposed -- (APPLAUSE) COOPER: Congressman Paul, you just proposed eliminating the Departments of Commerce, Education, Energy, Interior, Housing and Urban Development. You say it will save a trillion dollars in one year. (APPLAUSE) COOPER: You're proposing a 15 percent cut to the Defense Department. Can you guarantee national security will not be hurt by that? PAUL: I think it would be enhanced. I don't want to cut any defense. And you have to get it straight. There's a lot of money spent in the military budget that doesn't do any good for our defense. How does it help us to keep troops in Korea all these years? We're broke. We have to borrow this money. Why are we in Japan? Why do we subsidize Germany, and they subsidize their socialized system over there? Because we pay for it. We're broke. And this whole thing that this can't be on the table, I'll tell you what, this debt bubble is the thing you better really worry about, because it's imploding on us right now. It's worldwide. We are no more removed from this than man the man on the moon. It's going to get much worse. And to cut military spending is a wise thing to do. We would be safer if we weren't in so many places. We have an empire. We can't afford it. The empires always bring great nations down. We spread ourselves too thinly around the world. This is what's happened throughout history, and we're doing it to ourselves. The most recent empire to fail was an empire that went into, of all places, Afghanistan... COOPER: Time. PAUL: ... they went broke. So where are we? In Afghanistan. I say it's time to come home. (CHEERING AND APPLAUSE) COOPER: Congressman Paul, 30 seconds. PAUL: Well, I think we're on economic suicide if we're not even willing to look at some of these overseas expenditures, 150 bases -- 900 bases, 150 different countries. We have enough weapons to blow up the world about 20-25 times. We have more weapons than all the other countries put together essentially. And we want to spend more and more, and you can't cut a penny? I mean, this is why we're at an impasse. I want to hear somebody up here willing to cut something. Something real. (CHEERING AND APPLAUSE) PAUL: This budget is in bad shape and the financial calamity is going to be much worse than anybody ever invading this country. Which country -- are they going to invade this country? They can't even shoot a missile at us. COOPER: We have a question in the hall that gets to your question. The question in the hall on foreign aid? Yes, ma'am. VICKI O'KEEFE, BOULDER CITY, NEVADA: The American people are suffering in our country right now. Why do we continue to send foreign aid to other countries when we need all the help we can get for ourselves? COOPER: Congressman Paul? PAUL: On foreign aid, that should be the easiest thing to cut. It's not authorized in the Constitution that we can take money from you and give it to particular countries around the world. To me, foreign aid is taking money from poor people in this country and giving it to rich people in poor countries. And it becomes weapons of war. Essentially, no well -- no matter how well-motivated it is... COOPER: Congressman Paul, would you cut aid to Israel? PAUL: I would cut all foreign aid. I would treat everybody equally and fairly. And I don't think aid to Israel actually helps them. I think it teaches them to be dependent. We're on a bankruptcy course. And -- and look at what's the result of all that foreign aid we gave to Egypt? I mean, their -- their dictator that we pumped up, we spent all these billions of dollars, and now there's a more hostile regime in Egypt. And that's what's happening all around Israel. That foreign aid makes Israel dependent on us. It softens them for their own economy. And they should have their sovereignty back. They should be able to deal with their neighbors... COOPER: Time. Congresswoman Bachmann... PAUL: ... at their own will. (APPLAUSE) BACHMANN: No, we should not be cutting foreign aid to Israel. Israel is our greatest ally. The problem is... (APPLAUSE) CAIN: My approach is an extension of the Reagan approach: Peace through strength, which is peace through strength and clarity. If we clarify who our friends are, clarify who our enemies are, and stop giving money to our enemies, then we ought to continue to give money to our friends, like Israel. COOPER: You have 30 seconds, Congressman Paul, and then we've got to go. PAUL: Oh, yes. As a matter of fact, I don't want to make a statement. I want to ask a question. Are you all willing to condemn Ronald Reagan for exchanging weapons for hostages out of Iran? We all know that was done. SANTORUM: That's not -- Iran was a sovereign country. It was not a terrorist organization, number one. PAUL: Oh, they were our good friends back then, huh? SANTORUM: They're not our good friends. They're -- they're -- they're a sovereign country, just like the -- the Palestinian Authority is not the good friends of Israel. PAUL: He negotiated for hostages. SANTORUM: There's -- there's a role -- we negotiated with hostages (inaudible) the Soviet Union. We've negotiated with hostages, depending on the scale. But there's a difference between releasing terrorists from Guantanamo Bay in response to a terrorist demand... PAUL: But they're all suspects. They're not terrorists. You haven't convicted them of anything. SANTORUM: Then -- then -- then negotiating with other countries, where we may have an interest, and that is certainly a proper role for the United States, too. COOPER: I want to thank all the candidates, the GOP candidates tonight. (APPLAUSE) SANTORUM (to Ron Paul): You didn't get a chance to answer that question?!? PAUL (to Santorum): And I have the best poll numbers against Obama!