Johnny Kramer
wonders what it might look like.
The Ron Paul
campaign has excited libertarians, but many people wonder what he
could accomplish as president, facing a contrary Congress. While
some of this is speculation and it's not my intention to put words
in Dr. Paul's mouth, his inaugural address might sound something
like this:
January 20,
2009
"My fellow
citizens:
"On November
4th of last year, you, the American people, overwhelmingly
rejected the erosion of liberty that has occurred in this country
during the 20th Century and into the 21st.
"You
rejected having your money stolen through taxes and the inflationary
fiat money of the government's central bank.
"You
rejected deficit spending.
"You
rejected corporatism — the suppression of competition by government,
at the behest of politically-connected businesses and at the expense
of their competitors and of you, the consumer, under the guise of
u2018consumer protection;' forced cartelization of industry; and of
businesses profiting through the theft of being financed by tax
dollars.
"You
rejected government healthcare.
"You
rejected nation-building and wars of foreign aggression.
"You
rejected the erosion of your civil liberties under the guise of
fighting u2018terrorism.'
"I know
this because I promised, backed by a 30-year record of honesty and
integrity, to do my best to put a stop to all of these things, and
more, if you elected me to serve as your president. You had a choice
to make that day: My agenda or the status quo. You chose my agenda.
I humbly thank you, and I hope to repay your confidence during the
next four years.
The Budget
"Last
year, the federal government spent $3 trillion, which is more money
than it spent from 1787 to 1900 combined, in 2007 dollars.
"In 1963,
John F. Kennedy was concerned when the budget hit $99 billion, because
he didn't want to be the first president with a $100 billion budget.
"In 1980,
when Ronald Regan promised to get government off of our backs, the
federal budget was $500 billion.
"In 1990,
just half a generation later, the federal budget had more than doubled,
to more than $1 trillion.
"In 1995,
when the Republicans took control of Congress, the federal budget
was $1.5 trillion.
"In 2000,
leading into the previous administration, the budget was $1.8 trillion.
"The
budget last year was $3 trillion.
"In short,
the budget has doubled in just 13 years. It's six times what it
was in 1980, and 20 times what it was in 1960.
"What
happened in 1995, 1990, 1960, or even 1900, with a much smaller
government? The sky didn't fall, California didn't break off into
the ocean, and people weren't starving in the streets.
"There's
no question that our standard of living today is much higher than
in previous years, but that's in spite of government spending and
regulation, not because of it.
"Today,
thanks to the degree of capitalism, liberty and property rights
that remain in this country, the poor literally have a higher standard
of living than the richest person in the world did less than 150
years ago. Consider that the wealthiest of the wealthy in the 19th
Century didn't have indoor plumbing, electricity, central heating
or air-conditioning, or life-saving antibiotics and other life-saving
medical technologies of 2009, much less cars, airplanes, computers,
televisions, telephones, cell phones, and on and on.
"Where
did these things come from? Who makes life better for you: The private
sector, or government?
"The
standard of living we would enjoy without government boggles the
mind.
"In contrast,
what is the federal government giving us for our $3 trillion a year?
It steals our money, through taxation and inflation, as the price
of earning a living and attempting to save some of it. It tells
us what we can buy and what we can sell, whom we can hire and whom
we can fire, and with whom we can associate and with whom we cannot,
as well as other impediments to the peaceful, voluntary interaction
that makes civilization possible. It runs up the prices of the goods
we buy and holds down the wages we earn. It keeps life-saving medicines
and other products from us under the guise of u2018consumer protection.'
And that's just for starters; I don't have time today to even begin
detailing the ways in which government abuses us.
Budget Breakdown
"On what
does the federal government spend the $3 trillion it extracts from
the economy yearly?
"In 2007,
the budget broke down as follows:
- $699 billion
(+4.0%) – Defense - $586.1 billion
(+7.0%) – Social
Security - $394.5 billion
(+12.4%) – Medicare - $367.0 billion
(+2.0%) – Unemployment and welfare - $276.4 billion
(+2.9%) – Medicaid
and other health related - $243.7 billion
(+13.4%) – Interest on debt - $89.9 billion
(+1.3%) – Education and training - $76.9 billion
(+8.1%) – Transportation - $72.6 billion
(+5.8%) – Veterans’ benefits - $43.5 billion
(+9.2%) – Administration
of justice - $33.1 billion
(+5.7%) – Natural resources and environment - $32.5 billion
(+15.4%) – Foreign affairs - $27.0 billion
(+3.7%) – Agriculture - $26.8 billion
(+28.7%) – Community and regional development - $25.0 billion
(+4.0%) – Science and technology - $20.1 billion
(+11.4%) – General government - $1.1 billion
(+47.6%) – Energy
"And
all of these figures represent increases over the previous year's
budget." (Figures in parentheses show increase.)
"The
income tax accounts for $1.1 trillion, which means if it were repealed,
the federal government would still be roughly the size it was in
2000, just nine years ago,
"The
interest in the debt accounts for roughly 8% of the budget, so that
could be eliminated with a balanced budget.
"Within
30 days, I will send Congress a budget for the new fiscal year that
cuts federal spending by 50% immediately, repeals the income tax
and replaces it with nothing, and requires that the budget be balanced.
I'll let them figure out what to cut; most of this spending is blatantly
unconstitutional and destructive to the average person's standard
of living anyway, so overall I'm unconcerned with where the cuts
will come from.
"If the
budget they send back is one penny more, I will veto it.
"If they
override my veto an enact their budget, then the battle will finally
be joined and you will know exactly where your Senator or Representative
stands on the issue of your liberty, and you can vote accordingly
in the future.
"If at
least one-third of one house stands up for liberty, we will reach
an impasse and most of the government will be shut down. That will
put no pressure on me, as I'm trying to shut most of it down — permanently.
I will hold out for as long as it takes for them to pass my budget
— not their budget.
Vetoes
"Today
I will begin a policy of automatically vetoing any bill which allows
the federal government to do anything not authorized by the constitution.
"As a
former Congressman, I know that Congresspersons and Senators often
vote for bills which they haven't read. I also know that bills are
typically thousands of pages long; they receive votes based on their
virtuous-sounding titles, which usually have nothing to do with
the contents of the bill, which is usually full of pork and hidden
tyrannical authorizations.
"Based
on this, I will also automatically veto any bill if I'm not convinced
that every Congressperson and Senator has read it and knows what's
in it, or if it's too long for me to read in one hour.
The Military
"I urge
Congress to make the military budget a large percentage of the cuts,
as it's the cost of empire and policing the world and is bankrupting
us.
"Toward
that end, as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, today I will
order the complete, immediate removal of all U.S. troops from foreign
soil.
"I sincerely
hope that another budget cut Congress chooses to make will be the
complete repeal of all foreign aid, which accomplishes little but
to prop up thugs, dictators and brutal, oppressive regimes.
"And,
freed from the income tax, individual Americans will have the resources
to send money to causes they support; if they wish to send their
money to suffering foreigners, that's their business. But it has
a much better chance of doing good, rather than evil, traveling
through private channels.
"I want
the United States to adopt a position of armed neutrality, able
to defend herself, but aggressor against none; friend and trading
partner with all. We are probably the most geographically-blessed
nation on earth, with thousands of miles of ocean to the east and
west, and friendly neighbors to the north and south. Why must we
police the world?
"Beginning
today, the U.S. armed forces will exist to maintain a border and
shore patrol to repel an incoming military invasion and to maintain
a missile defense, once one is developed.
"Regarding
a missile defense, anyone who understands economics knows that the
best way to accomplish something is through the profit motive, while
the worst way is through a government bureaucracy. To that end,
today I am offering a $100 billion reward to the first private company
that can produce a working missile defense.
Osama bin
Laden
"On September
11, 2001, the United States was hit with a brutal, devastating terrorist
attack. While I sincerely believe that the attack was blowback for
50 years of U.S. government meddling in the Middle East, it was
still a despicable, unacceptable criminal act.
"A criminal
act — not an act of war. To respond by killing innocent civilians
in Afghanistan and elsewhere is no better than the terrorists responding
to U.S. foreign policy by killing innocent Americans.
"It is
widely believed that former U.S. ally Osama bin Laden was responsible
for 9/11. Yet in over seven years since the attack, he has been
neither caught nor punished, largely because our government was
too busy nation-building and policing the world.
"I will
be reviewing the evidence for bin Laden's guilt with my Attorney
General and his staff. If they agree that the evidence is strong
enough to get an indictment in a normal criminal proceeding, and
if the networks and cable news outlets will be so kind as to give
me some time, I will go on television, lay the evidence out before
the world, and offer a ransom for anyone who can deliver bin Laden,
and any accomplices the evidence indicts, alive to U.S. custody.
If you kill any of them, you won't get a dime; we don't execute
people without trials here.
"If they
are captured, they will receive fair public trials, with all of
the habeas corpus and other rights that would be afforded to any
American citizen. I want America to be an example to the world at
all times, even trying times such as these.
The War
on Terror
"Regarding
the overall War on Terror: Terrorism is a tactic, an abstraction;
you can't have a war against an abstraction. Terrorism is not a
person who can surrender, or an organization or nation-state with
a leader who can surrender. The concept is inherently nonsense.
"And
the evidence is overwhelming that America's aggressive, proactive
War on Terror has significantly increased, not decreased, terrorism.
"There's
no way that the government, or anyone else, can possibly anticipate
every possible place and every possible way that a terrorist could
strike, especially in a country this size. If it's going to happen,
it's going to happen; foil one plot, and the terrorists will just
hatch another. It was the government that failed to protect us on
9/11; why should we look to them now? The best defense against terrorism
is armed neutrality and not giving anyone a reason to hate, fear
or want to attack us.
"Yet
the government constantly tells us that we must trade our civil
liberties for safety. As Benjamin Franklin said, "He who sacrifices
freedom for security deserves neither." As president, I will
immediately begin pressuring Congress to repeal all so-called anti-terrorism
measures enacted since 9/11 that infringe on civil liberties, including
the Patriot Act and the Real I.D. Act.
Vices
"An issue
of great concern for many Americans today is vices, such as illicit
drugs.
"The
constitution gives the federal government no jurisdiction over vices.
Yet the federal government continually wastes billions of dollars,
and destroys thousands and thousands of lives, trying to stop peaceful,
voluntary activities.
"A government
is not the arbiter of morality; it's nothing but a group of people
who grant themselves a legal monopoly on the use of force within
a certain area. Governments routinely engage in behavior that would
be universally regarded as criminal in the private sector.
"Liberty
is the condition of being legally free to do as you choose, so long
as you're not forcibly intruding on anyone else's body or property.
"Naturally,
a great deal of peaceful, voluntary behavior that falls within the
guidelines of liberty is personally destructive. But, if it should
be illegal to buy, sell or ingest certain drugs, for example, why
shouldn't it be illegal to smoke, drink too much, eat a bad diet,
go into too much debt, marry the wrong person, not get an education,
or choose a career for which one is ill-suited? If personal harm
is the standard for illegality, we should all be in prison.
"It may
shock many to hear, but 100 years ago, there were no drug laws in
this country, not even prescription laws, and a 10-year-old child
could walk into a drug store and buy marijuana, cocaine or even
heroin. In fact, Bayer — the same company that makes Bayer aspirin
today — used to manufacture heroin, and even introduced heroin to
the market the year before they introduced aspirin, in the 1880s,
because they believed at the time that aspirin was the more dangerous
drug. Heroin was sold as a pain reliever and sedative and was perfectly
safe; it only became a deadly, toxic substance once it was outlawed,
much like gin became a deadly, toxic substance during Prohibition,
when it was produced in people's bathtubs instead of in legitimate
distilleries.
"Please
understand that I am not condoning recreational drug use. As a medical
doctor, I have seen the destruction to lives that drugs can cause.
But most of that destruction, such as high prices requiring theft
to support the habits, drive-by shootings, gang warfare and pushers
on schoolyards, is caused by the black market created by illegality,
not by the drugs themselves.
"Nor
am I saying that some people won't still take drugs if theyu2018re legal;
of course they will. I live in the real world, not the ridiculous
"Drug Free America" utopia that the government is always
promising — and failing miserably — to create. But I sincerely believe
that drug use, and its negative effects on society, will be minimized
with a free, legal market.
"In a
free society, people should be free to make their own mistakes,
harm themselves, even harm their loved ones indirectly through their
behavior, and pay the consequences that naturally follow from their
actions. The legal system should only get involved if the behavior
forcibly violates another person's body or property.
"And,
again, the constitution gives the federal government no jurisdiction
over drugs or any other vice.
"So today
I will grant a full, unconditional pardon to anyone who has been
convicted of a federal, non-violent drug offense. I will order them
all to be released from prison within 90 days — unfortunately, there
are a lot of people to process and it will take some time, and I
will restore their full civil and voting rights.
"The
constitution only allows three federal crimes: Treason, piracy and
counterfeiting. So today I will also begin granting pardons to anyone
convicted of any other federal, victimless crime, such as non-violent
gun control offenses, federal tax charges, and insider trading.
Executive
Orders
"Today
I will issue an Executive Order, temporarily freezing all previous
Executive Orders and regulations put in place by previous presidents
until I can review the constitutionality of each one. If I deem
one to be unconstitutional, I will issue another Executive Order,
repealing it.
The Federal
Reserve
"In 1913,
the Federal Reserve system was sold to the American people as a
way to u2018stabilize' the banking industry and avoid bank runs and
panics. Since then, the Federal Reserve has presided over a decade-plus
depression, numerous recessions and near-constant inflation. A 1913
dollar is now worth about four cents. Inflation is a hidden tax
by the wealthy against the poor and middle class.
"Fiat
money and the artificial expansion of credit also causes the boom-and-bust
cycle, such as the stock market bubble in 2000 and the housing market
bubble today. Many poor and middle class Americans have had their
standards of living significantly damaged by this cycle, which wouldn't
occur in a free market with sound money.
"Today
I will begin urging Congress to amend banking regulations to allow
for a much more competitive, freer market in banking, including
the legalization of private money to compete with fiat Federal Reserve
Notes.
Health Care
"Another
important issue today is health care.
"Despite
its flaws, and despite propaganda to the contrary, America's health
care system is still the envy of the world. Stories abound of people
from countries with socialized healthcare, such as Canada, traveling
to the U.S. for live-saving procedures either the bureaucrats in
their own country had denied or to avoid a many-month or many-year
wait.
"Unfortunately,
there is only one way ration scarce resources: By price. The alternative
is forced rationing and waiting lines; governments cannot create
resources out of thin air. In a free market, competition and innovation
drive prices down, and charity exists for life-and-death services
for those who need them and cannot pay.
"And
there is nothing compassionate about forcing people at gunpoint
to wait in line for treatment, to put life-or-death decisions about
their health in the hands of bureaucrats, or to create a dangerous
black market in health care, which is the market's attempt to circumvent
the government's failures.
"Some
say that essential services, like health care, should be beyond
pricing and profit. This is nonsense; there is no such thing as
a right to something for which someone else has to pay.
"Furthermore,
unless someone has an immediately life-threatening injury or illness,
food is more essential for life than healthcare; by this logic,
people should have a u2018right' to u2018free' food too.
"If this
seems like a good idea, consider that in countries that have preached
such beliefs and forcibly nationalized food production and distribution,
there was mass starvation on a scale that Americans cannot begin
to comprehend.
"But,
in countries like the U.S., where people are u2018exploited' by greedy,
selfish food manufacturers, supermarkets and restaurants, even the
poorest people have more food than they can eat, and the government
still makes food more expensive than it would otherwise be, though
things like farm subsidies.
"And
health care is technology-driven, so people should also consider
how it is that things like cell phones, DVD players, plasma televisions
and computers have fallen 50-90% in price over the past 10 years,
even while the quality goes up, while health care continues to get
more and more expensive.
"Health
care is one of the most-regulated industries in America today. It
began in earnest in the late-19th Century, through the
forced cartelization of the industry through things like licensing
laws. As a medical doctor, I know that these laws were not enacted
to protect the public; they were enacted at the behest of the health
care industry, to artificially inflate their incomes by restricting
the supply.
"Government
regulation of health care and insurance has continued unabated throughout
the 20th Century.
"As recently
as the mid-1960s, a one-week hospital stay for an average surgical
procedure was $1,000 in today's dollars — and that was the total
bill, not what remained to be paid after insurance paid its part.
And health insurance was cheaply available to all who needed it.
"By the
government's own figures, health care costs seniors twice what it
did before Medicare, even after adjusting for inflation.
"The
FDA approval process drives up the prices of drugs and delays their
arrival on the market for years. The FDA has killed more people
by keeping life-saving drugs off the market for too long than it
has saved by preventing potentially dangerous drugs from being sold.
It's common sense that it's not in the self-interest of a pharmaceutical
company to poison its customers.
"HMOs
became powerful because of legislation enacted on their behalf in
the 1970s.
"There
are many other ways government impeded health care, and I don't
have time to detail them all today.
"But
rest assured that, as president, I will urge Congress to repeal
all federal regulations on the health care and insurance industries.
Social Security
and Medicare
"Two
other pressing issues are Social Security and Medicare.
"Unfortunately,
several generations of Americans have been conditioned to look to
the government as their provider, and now many people, especially
seniors, are dependent on government for their survival. While I
sincerely believe that these programs never should've been started,
I want to assure seniors that I have no intention of cutting off
their benefits without making provisions for them.
"When
Congress debates my budget proposal, I will urge them to make provisions
for Social Security and Medicare for the next fiscal year. And I
will urge them to alter how Social Security operates, to change
it from a Ponzi Scheme where the incoming money is spent immediately,
to a program where the money is saved.
"I will
also push for people who are not already collecting Social Security
to be allowed to opt out of it, to be freed from the 15% tax in
exchange for renouncing their claim to any future benefits. Unfortunately,
the money they've already paid into the system can't be refunded,
because the politicians already spent it.
"If my
other health care proposals are enacted and the market is freed,
health care should become so inexpensive that the need for Medicare
will evaporate and it can eventually be repealed, but it may take
a few years.
"Later
in my term, I hope to explore alternatives for completely privatizing
Social Security, such as buying lifetime annuities with private
insurance companies for everyone who's already collecting, or will
be within the next 10 years.
Congress
"Finally
today, let me address the issue of Congress.
"There
are a lot of people in Congress who believe in the State, in the
virtue of using force to remake society.
"Many
expect Congress to fight me tooth and nail. They may, but I want
to warn them that they will be taking an enormous political risk
if they defy me. Again, the American people had a choice to make
last November, and they chose the agenda I've outlined today.
"I ask
the American people to contact their Representatives and Senators
and urge them to help me restore liberty to America.
"To the
Congress, I say that, if you fight the work I have been sent here
to do, I will ask the American people to begin sending me better
people to work with in next year's mid-term elections. I hope, instead,
that you will choose to work with me.
Thank You
"We face
many challenges today, and of course I have not addressed them all
But I do believe I've outlined an excellent start.
"I
want to humbly thank you again for choosing me to represent you
for the next four years, and I again promise to do my best to repay
your confidence and to make this a free country again."
September
5, 2007
Johnny Kramer
[send him mail]
writes from Wichita, KS.
