President Ron 'Veto' Paul

Sometimes it’s notable when the pot calls the kettle "black," especially when you hear it plainly said so and know it’s true. (News Flash: Greenspan talks sense!)

In his new book, former Federal Reserve chief, Alan Greenspan, smashes "W" for lacking conservative spending habits. No Chance Gardener cloaked metaphors here. In uncharacteristic clarity, he said:

"My biggest frustration remained the president’s unwillingness to wield his veto against out-of-control spending. Not exercising the veto power became a hallmark of the Bush presidency. . . . To my mind, Bush's collaborate-don't-confront approach was a major mistake."

Eureka! Just when’s the last time we heard Bush say "veto"? Bush claims respect for Ronald Reagan. But Reagan vetoed 78 bills in eight years. Bush has vetoed only 3 in six years. Maybe that’s because he largely had a Democratic Congress. Bush has had the luxury of a Republican Congressional majority – that is, until his Iraq war debacle earned him the blowback (pay attention, Mr. Giuliani!) from the voters in 2006.

It takes some gumption to veto Congressional bills. Presidents want to be loved and cheered, so they try to go along. But that can be dangerous. So, in this campaign season we might ask, who among the presidential candidates has the courage to veto bad laws? Who will stand up to Congress with a pen after inheriting Bush’s war and massive deficits? Who has a history of voting against his own party colleagues and even his party’s president? There’s only one.

Having known and read Ron Paul for 25 years down here in Texas, it’s exciting to see the world at last discover him – maybe in the nick of time considering the state of the nation – as a possible president of the United States. With him as my representative to Congress, I always had the comfort of knowing that at least our rep really did have a copy of the Constitution and applied it to every bill he had to consider. Party and special interest meant nothing to him. The principles of liberty, the wisdom of the Founding Fathers, the Constitution meant everything. Of course, this usually meant he voted "No" and didn’t care who laughed. We didn’t laugh down in the district. We cheered.

So, it’s easy to imagine how President Ron would react if Congress presented him with bills to nationalize health care (the Democrat’s dream), subsidize drug prescriptions, bail out foreign currencies (remember the peso?), spy on American citizens, require a national ID card, reinstitute the draft, bail out private banks, etc. Bam! Veto. Shocked Congressional members would realize that to get President Ron to sign anything, it must conform to the U.S. Constitution (Mr. Giuliani, put this on your reading list!) and enhance a three-pronged philosophy of liberty, peace, prosperity.

I laugh to think of how President Ron will handle the pack of self-interested socialists and warmongers in Congress. The threat of Ron’s veto will haunt them while they try to make up new laws to cure all social and economic ills here and abroad. "Veto" will become so vernacularized that even W will be able to spell it for the folks up in Crawford, Texas.

In the comfort and safety of knowing that President Ron "Veto" Paul is standing guard, we’ll be able to muse on why Mr. Greenspan, if he’s half the libertarian he claims to be, didn’t try to dismantle the Fed while he was there, or at least articulate the sheer dishonesty and dangers of fiat money. Maybe he’ll do that in his next book. He does seem to like printing paper.

September 17, 2007

Kevin Southwick [send him mail] is a technical writer in Houston, Texas.

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