Listen to Ron Paul on the issues!
Congressman Ron Paul of Texas enjoys a national reputation as the premier advocate for liberty in politics today. Dr. Paul is the leading spokesman in Washington for limited constitutional government, low taxes, free markets, and a return to sound monetary policies based on commodity-backed currency. He is known among both his colleagues in Congress and his constituents for his consistent voting record in the House of Representatives: Dr. Paul never votes for legislation unless the proposed measure is expressly authorized by the Constitution. In the words of former Treasury Secretary William Simon, Dr. Paul is the "one exception to the Gang of 535" on Capitol Hill.
Ron Paul was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Gettysburg College and the Duke University School of Medicine, before proudly serving as a flight surgeon in the U.S. Air Force during the 1960s. He and his wife Carol moved to Texas in 1968, where he began his medical practice in Brazoria County. As a specialist in obstetrics/gynecology, Dr. Paul has delivered more than 4,000 babies! He and Carol, who reside in Lake Jackson, Texas, are the proud parents of five children and have seventeen grandchildren.
While serving in Congress during the late 1970s and early 1980s, Dr. Paul's limited-government ideals were not popular in Washington. He served on the House Banking committee, where he was a strong advocate for sound monetary policy and an outspoken critic of the Federal Reserve's inflationary measures. He also was a key member of the Gold Commission, advocating a return to a gold standard for our currency. He was an unwavering advocate of pro-life and pro-family values. Dr. Paul consistently voted to lower or abolish federal taxes, spending, and regulation, and used his House seat to actively promote the return of government to its proper constitutional levels. In 1984, he voluntarily relinquished his House seat and returned to his medical practice.
Dr. Paul returned to Congress in 1997 to represent the 14th Congressional district of Texas. He serves on the House Financial Services Committee, the International Relations committee, and the Joint Economic Committee. On the Financial Services Committee, Rep. Paul serves as the vice-chairman of the Oversight and Investigations subcommittee. He continues to advocate a dramatic reduction in the size of the federal government and a return to constitutional principles.
Dr. Paul is the author of several books, including Challenge to Liberty; The Case for Gold; and A Republic, If You Can Keep It. He has been a distinguished counselor to the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and is widely quoted by scholars and writers in the fields of monetary policy, banking, and political economy. He has received many awards and honors during his career in Congress, from organizations such as the National Taxpayers Union, Citizens Against Government Waste, the Council for a Competitive Economy, Young Americans for Freedom, and countless others.
Dr. Paul's consistent voting record prompted one Congressman to comment that "Ron Paul personifies the Founding Fathers' ideal of the citizen-statesman. He makes it clear that his principles will never be compromised, and they never are." Another Congresswoman added that "There are few people in public life who, through thick and thin, rain or shine, stick to their principles. Ron Paul is one of those few."
Dr. Paul is getting a lot of attention in the Republican primaries for being the only candidate to come out against the war in Iraq. In addition to an enthusiastic base of internet libertarians, he's starting to get mainstream attention from classic conservatives, moderates, and anti-war leftists. He's also starting to get mainstream attention from hawks and GOP talking heads such as Hannity and Malkin, who are beside themselves trying to slander him as some kind of America-hating jerk for daring to bring up the concept of "blowback" in the context of 9/11, and while Ron Paul wasn't even on the radar until the second debate, they're now working furiously to slime him and bury his campaign.In addition to being a peacenik, Ron Paul is also probably the most tolerable Republican candidate for social liberals. Although he's a morally conservative Christian like most of the mainstream candidates, he's unlike them in being a consistent federalist who values civil liberties. What this translates to is that he would also do things like end the federal War on Drugs, roll back the PATRIOT Act, restore habeas corpus and end wiretapping, etc. He's extremely pro-gun and also opposed the Federal Marriage Amendment.And then there's his economic views; Paul has fairly heterodox economic views which are closely aligned with those of the Austrian school of economics, and has a laissez-faire philosophy of government which makes him radical even among Republicans. In Congress, he gets the nickname of "Dr. No" for refusing to vote for any spending bill which he sees as overreaching the enumerated powers of the government in the Constitution (which in practice amounts to a lot of them), and has also famously never voted for a tax increase. Unlike the rest of the Republicans, he's a credible deficit hawk who views the weakening of the dollar and inflation as direct results of our ballooning federal budget, and in the second debate, he talked of eliminating entire Cabinet departments and returning their responsibilities to the states.
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