KG4JYD
11-30-2007, 02:47 AM
Ron Paul Is Wrong, Proves Washington Post
Appearing a few weeks ago on the Tonight Show, libertarian Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul told host Jay Leno that his plan to abolish the hated federal income tax would still leave government funding at year 2000 levels.
Wrong! False! cried the ever-vigilant Washington Post.
After careful study, the Post declared that, in reality, if Ron Paul ended the personal income tax and replaced it with nothing, federal revenues would fall to... 1995 levels.
Oh, no! Not that! How could America get by with only the tiny, minuscule federal government of the Clinton years? Please don't throw us in that briar patch!
Actually, we don't recall many people in 1995 saying the federal government wasn't big enough. In fact, we remember those radical anti-government activists Bill Clinton and Al Gore attacking the federal government as being bloated, and declaring "the era of Big Government is over." (Alas, it turns out they were a tad over-optimistic.)
So, yeah, we could live with abolishing the income tax even if Dr. Paul's estimates are off by a few years. The Republic would survive.
But are Paul's figures really off, even by the Post's absurdly nit-picking standard? The Cato Institute's Daniel J. Mitchell checked it out:
"The Post's criticism is akin to condemning a book because the typesetting as not centered on a few pages. The real issue is whether America would be a stronger and more prosperous nation if government was reduced to the levels envisioned by the Founding Fathers. ... The Post also fixates on whether the Paul campaign has identified $1.1 trillion of savings to match the forgone revenue from eliminating the income tax.
"In attempting to figure out where the $1.1 trillion in *annual* savings is going to come from in a Paul administration, I talked yesterday afternoon to the candidate's policy director, Joseph Becker. He pointed out that Paul has promised to bring troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan, eliminate foreign aid, eliminate agriculture subsidies, and get rid of the U.S. Education Department...
"The candidate almost certainly would favor the elimination (or transfer to the states) of the Departments of Agriculture, Energy, Education, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, Labor, Commerce, and Health and Human Services...
"Indeed, because he also would gradually turn entitlement programs into systems based on personal accounts (and shift welfare components back to the state and local levels), the long-term savings would significantly exceed the amount of money collected by the personal income tax."
(Source: Cato Institute blog:
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2007....ax-plan (http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2007/11/09/defending-ron-pauls-tax-plan/) )
Appearing a few weeks ago on the Tonight Show, libertarian Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul told host Jay Leno that his plan to abolish the hated federal income tax would still leave government funding at year 2000 levels.
Wrong! False! cried the ever-vigilant Washington Post.
After careful study, the Post declared that, in reality, if Ron Paul ended the personal income tax and replaced it with nothing, federal revenues would fall to... 1995 levels.
Oh, no! Not that! How could America get by with only the tiny, minuscule federal government of the Clinton years? Please don't throw us in that briar patch!
Actually, we don't recall many people in 1995 saying the federal government wasn't big enough. In fact, we remember those radical anti-government activists Bill Clinton and Al Gore attacking the federal government as being bloated, and declaring "the era of Big Government is over." (Alas, it turns out they were a tad over-optimistic.)
So, yeah, we could live with abolishing the income tax even if Dr. Paul's estimates are off by a few years. The Republic would survive.
But are Paul's figures really off, even by the Post's absurdly nit-picking standard? The Cato Institute's Daniel J. Mitchell checked it out:
"The Post's criticism is akin to condemning a book because the typesetting as not centered on a few pages. The real issue is whether America would be a stronger and more prosperous nation if government was reduced to the levels envisioned by the Founding Fathers. ... The Post also fixates on whether the Paul campaign has identified $1.1 trillion of savings to match the forgone revenue from eliminating the income tax.
"In attempting to figure out where the $1.1 trillion in *annual* savings is going to come from in a Paul administration, I talked yesterday afternoon to the candidate's policy director, Joseph Becker. He pointed out that Paul has promised to bring troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan, eliminate foreign aid, eliminate agriculture subsidies, and get rid of the U.S. Education Department...
"The candidate almost certainly would favor the elimination (or transfer to the states) of the Departments of Agriculture, Energy, Education, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, Labor, Commerce, and Health and Human Services...
"Indeed, because he also would gradually turn entitlement programs into systems based on personal accounts (and shift welfare components back to the state and local levels), the long-term savings would significantly exceed the amount of money collected by the personal income tax."
(Source: Cato Institute blog:
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2007....ax-plan (http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2007/11/09/defending-ron-pauls-tax-plan/) )