Bernie Sanders versus Rand Paul

I'm going to mostly spend this round to build my own case, largely because I run low on characters and CON hasn't offered any arguments, but has merely stated several of Paul's positions. On top of that there is hardly any specifity or explicit sourcing, so I would ask CON to flesh out his contentions. I'm not responsible for pouring through his sources to discover the contentions he intended to offer. Merely stating that Paul supported X position doesn't mean that Paul should be president; CON needs to tell us how X position would benefit the country and how Paul would be preferable to Sanders.I. Experience Experence is obviously a critical factor for any presidential hopeful. Congressional gridlock is worse than it has ever been, and the current Congress has been deemed the "least productive Congress ever," passing fewer bills than any Congress that preceded it (1). Therefore, a presidential candidate must not only be firm and steadfast in what he stands for, but willing to communicate effectively with members of the opposition party. This requires congressional experience. In much the same way that you would hire a gardener to do gardening work and a plumber to do plumbing work, you would want a politician to do political work. The majority of Senator Paul's career is not as a Senator, but as an optamalogist (2). Bernie Sanders served 14 years in the U.S. House of Representatives before he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2006 (3). This means that he has served in the U.S. Congress for about 24 years, in addition to four terms as Mayor of Burlington (3). Compare this to Rand Paul, who was only elected in 2010 to the U.S. Senate, meaning that he only has 4 years of experience (4). Bernie also serves on five congressional committees -- Budget; Veterans; Energy; Environment; and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions -- and chairs the Veterans committee (3). II. Policy Priorities We should have a president whose prioritizes the issues most critical to the country's survival. Sander's stated priorities are as follows: "the shrinking middle class and widening income gap in America that is greater than at any time since the Great Depression. Other priorities include reversing global warming, universal health care, fair trade policies, supporting veterans and preserving family farms" (3). By contrast, Rand Paul's priorities are "term limits, a balanced-budget amendment, a Read the Bills Act, and an audit of the Federal Reserve" (4). Why hasn't he mentioned climate change, income inequality, healthcare, veterans, etc.? The reason, by and large, is that Rand Paul doesn't believe the government ought to intervene in these issues; he's a "free market" ideologue who believes that, if government steps out of the way, everything will be beautiful and miraculous. We know from history that this isn't the case: that markets, left to their own devices, are not perfectly efficient, omnibenevolent, omniscient creatures, and this is largely because people are not rational actors, nor do they have perfect information. In fact, we had much larger government from 1945 to 1980, with tax rates between 71 and 94 percent (5), and the economy boomed to the benefit of everyone, not just the very affluent. Sanders has cited this time as his inspiration, whereas Paul chooses to simply ignore it or to deny reality.Paul's priorities, however, are embarassing. Term limits are hardly a relevant issue, especially when initiatives to place them on the ballot have been largely funded by the billionaire Koch brothers (6), oil moguls set on funding misinformation campaigns on climate change (because green enrgy would invite competition to the oil industry), to fighting the minimum wage, the Affordable Care Act, etc. (7). Conveniently, many Koch-funded industries as well as large corporations have contributed to Rand Paul's campaigns over the years (8). The reason they want term limits? The people who would be effected are mostly Democrats. We have term limits: they're called elections. Why in the world would we want to prevent politicians from gaining experience and allow people to make their own decisions? Term limits simply wouldn't fix any problems, especially when we consider the revolving door exists, anyway, and this hardly addresses it, as politicians would simply become lobbyists after their time in office is up. He is also ignorant of monetary policy, which tells me that his nomination for Fed Chairman -- who would wield an immense amount of power and could literally propel the economy in a permanent slump by following Paul's hawkish rhetoric and raising interest rates -- would be disastrous. He's expressed a fervor that Fed is raising the cost of goods and hurting poor people (9). In supporting and campaigning for his father, who wanted to end the Fed (10), he endorsed a policy that is utterly absurd. It would bring us back to the panics of the 1800s and early 1900s which occured roughly every 20 years, before we had a central bank committed to financial stability (11). His policy of auditing is also misguided. Not only is he dead wrong on inflation -- inflation is only about 2 percent right now, and has consistently been below the Fed's targets in recent years (12), largely because banks have accumulated about $2.5 trillion in excess reserves (13), and his statement that the Fed affects food and gas prices is mendacious (14) -- but the policy he supports (auditing the Fed) would actually cause MORE inflation. There's a wide body of academic literature showing a negative correlation between central bank independence and inflation, most notably from Alesina and Summers (15).A balanced budget amendment is also a joke, as it would force the federal government to adhere to a dogmatic standard at all times -- not factoring in that during a downturn, due to a lack of aggregate demand, the government needs to prime the pump -- which would force through austerity. The negative impacts of austerity on the European periphery are widely known and profound (16), and have even been linked to about 500 suicides in Greece (17). In Greece, austerity actually INCREASED the debt: G.D.P. ratio because as GDP contracted, tax revenues fell which led to an unrelenting cycle of deleveraging and unemployment. An exceptional case against the BBA comes from Paul Krugman, who argues that setting a GDP cap for the federal budget is ludicrous (18). As the economy enters recession and GDP contracts, tax revenues fall. Not only are we taking in less revenue, but now we're taking the same percentage out of a smaller GDP figure. This would impose massive austerity that would have the same effect on the U.S. as it did in Greece: higher debt to G.D.P. ratios and more unemployment. John Maynard Keynes was vindicated after the military buildup for WWII ended the Great Depression (19): spend more during a downturn and cut back during a recession. Sanders believes in this principle, which is part of the reason that he would be an exceptional president economically speaking. III. Paul is Ignorant of ScienceClimate change is one of the most severe threats to the future of the planet, and has broader economic implications, particularly on food security. There is no debate over whether this is caused by humans: 97.1% of scientific papers on this subject support the fact that it is caused by humans (20). The U.S. military recognizes the danger of climate change (21), arguing that it impacts military readiness and creates missions overseas. Paul, however, is a climate-change denier (22). Though even many conservative economists such as Greg Mankiw and Scott Sumner support a carbon tax, acknowledging the perils of climate change, Paul like the ideologus he is, writes it off because it would require government intervention. Paul said he wants the U.S. to drill in "every, possible conceivable place" (23). Not only would this ludicrous idea have dire environmental ramifications, but the U.S. is already the world's largest oil producer (24), so Paul isn't even properly diagnosing the problem. Sanders, on the other hand, has considered climate change to be one of our top threats and has been a leader on addressing this issue (25).IV. EconomicsI've already explained why Sanders is good economically speaking: he understands the threat of income inequality and how it impacts middle- and lower-income families. Paul's proposals, however, will merely exacerbate it. I run low on characters so I can't get into this as much as I would like, though it's a central issue to my case so I will expand on it in later rounds. We know that Paul's proposals of even more austeirty and even more tax cuts will merely widen this gap and expand the influence of the rich in politics. Is it not curious that Paul is against abolishing corporate personhood (26) (and is working with Citizens United to abolish the IRS (27) which is corrupting politics, while Sanders has been a leader in ending the Citizens United decision and restoring democracy (28)? Research shows us that the U.S. is becoming an oligarchy (29), and Paul's policies merely exacerbate that. Sources 1. http://tinyurl.com...2. http://tinyurl.com...3. http://tinyurl.com...4. http://tinyurl.com...5. http://tinyurl.com...6. http://tinyurl.com...7. http://tinyurl.com...8. http://tinyurl.com...9. http://tinyurl.com...10. http://tinyurl.com...11. http://tinyurl.com...12. http://tinyurl.com...13. http://tinyurl.com...14. http://tinyurl.com...15. http://tinyurl.com...16. http://tinyurl.com...17. http://tinyurl.com...18. http://tinyurl.com...19. http://tinyurl.com...20. http://tinyurl.com...21. http://tinyurl.com...22. http://tinyurl.com...23. http://tinyurl.com...24. http://tinyurl.com...25. Video http://www.youtube.com...26. http://tinyurl.com...;27. http://tinyurl.com...28. http://tinyurl.com...29. http://tinyurl.com...