Ron Paul's economic policies are superior to Barack Obama's economic policies.

Ford may help dissipate any confusion the judges may have experienced reading Con's argument: "It is well enough that people of the nation don’t understand the monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning. ” Henry Ford Austrian School: My opponent's definition is valid. He reiterates the sound policies of Austrian Economics which Ron Paul holds. He cites "property rights, free markets, national defense, and law enforcement" as the core issues. Yes, this is the proper role of government. The reason why Austrians are "strongly opposed to government intervention in business affairs" is because the government stifles economic growth, causes bubbles and speculation from central bank monetary policy, and causes deadweight loss through unnecessary government bureaucracies and programs. [1] Keynesian School: Keynesian economics CAUSES the business cycle. By artificially raising or lowering the interest rates (which should be set by the market) the Federal Reserve plays a huge role in generating booms and busts. Also, price controls in the area of wages makes employment below the minimum wage illegal; thus, fostering unemployment and the deadweight loss of unemployment benefits that follows while decreasing the total amount of goods and wealth for all. Keynesian monetary policy make relatively steady economic growth littered with periods of artifically booms and disasterous market corrections that are further delayed by economic "stimulus" until the economy and national debt gets increasingly worse. [3] Warfarism: a federal government desire to consistently go to war and prepare for war. The word was popularized by Libertarian economist Ludwig Von Mises, anti-war movements, and Ron Paul in his book Liberty Defined, but you can substitute "militarism," if you like. The Keynesian idea behind it is that spending on war generate genuine economic growth, which of course it doesn't. Under Barack Obama the military currently spends an exorbitant amount of money maintaining unnecessary forces tat weaken our national defense. What weakens our defense even more is the fact that this spending is bankrupting the country. . http://1.bp.blogspot.com... RC1: The US currently has the second highest corporate tax rate in the world. The threats that I mentioned still exist. The disincentives to small business growth and entrenchment still exist. My opponent mentioned Obama's Affordable Care Act. This Act will do to medicine what socialism has done to medicine in other countries: lower quality, lower efficiency, increase costs, and increase waiting times. The only type of surgery that decreased in cost in the past decade was plastic surgery, because of the lack of government intervention. A $20,000 heart surgery in the United States costs near $10,000 in Singapore, because Singapore has more economic freedom. So what Obama and Congress are doing is taking a bad system and making it unimaginably worse. Obama hasn't made the US more conducive to small business growth; he has however, increased the power of big business. [4] [5] RC2: "Obama saved the Auto Industry. " I'm confident that most of the people reading this debate can take this laughable claim for what it is: a joke. The status quo of Washington economic policy is to make an environment increasingly hostile to business, shoot up the economy with cheap money that fuels speculation, then when there are dire consequences to these irresponsible actions, they bail out specific companies; thus, creating a moral hazard, discouraging small business, subsidizing big business, and making the average American pay for it through direct taxation or indirect taxation i. e. printing money that devalues the currency while the debt continues to accumulate. This is a "success" for Washington Keynesians. The role of government is not to pick winners or losers, but to allow the free market to decide which goods to produce. If a company cannot figure out how to survive, you should allow it to die so that another that can do the job better can replace it. You don't reward terrible managing through bailout's with other people's money. That's the heighth of irresponsibility. [10] RC3: "Stimulus" This is a very persistent economic fallacy. The thought that cheap money sent to commercial and investment banks at practically a zero rate of interest stimulating economic growth is absurd. When you hear the word "stimulus" you can basically substitute the word "inflation," because that's all a country will get from implementing it. The government is incapable of stimulating genuine economic growth, they have no real resources, and all they can do is interfere with the free market's ability to create genuine economic growth and legitimate wealth. RC4: Barack Obama supported the Wall Street Bailouts. The CPA is another government bureaucracy which has the goal of monitoring activity caused by another government bureaucracy. This is the epitome of inefficiency. The bill doesn't get to the root cause of the financial crisis: reckless monetary policy from the federal reserve. The law does not end "Too big to fail. " The firms that benefitted from the bailouts will be ensured continued industry dominance with the help of government. Note here that there has never been a monopoly in the United States without government intervention. More regulations in the financial sector means higher costs for smaller financial services firms; thus, decreasing competition, and allowing the dominance of a select few financial services firms in the industry. Ron Paul objected to the bailouts every step of the way. [6] [10] RC5: Obama did not put the US back on a recovery any more than the socialist policies of Bush put the US on a recovery after the recession in his first term. Washington doesn't understand that the stimulus is the problem. It just delays the recession (in the case of Bush until 2008-2010) until a later date in which the severity is increased, because of the unhealthy economic woes produced by reckless monetary policy. Despite how severe this recession was, the next will be far worse unless we let the free market correct itself and do away with a nation-destroying federal reserve that is bankrupting not only our country, but central banking has destroyed countries throughout history throughout the world [see Greece and Portugal]. Ron Paul writes extensively on the topic with great profundity in his book End the Fed. The federal reserve system inflates the money supply, decreasing its value and stimulating economic destruction. [7] [8] RC6: The American Jobs Act is an example of what is known as the most persistent economic fallacy of all time. This fallacy is that if the government pays people to work or do nothing, they'll spend that money, hence growth. That is false; the people aren't productively employed, because taxpayers are financing it. The incentive is to work less while being employed. It is not efficient use of resources; thus, there is deadweight loss, and taxpayer funding for it is irresponsible. Obama would have raised the debt past his triple if it was passed. [9] [1] www. econlib. org/library/Enc/AustrianSchoolofEconomics. html [2] www. econlib. org/library/Enc/MonetaryPolicy. html [3] www. econlib. org/library/Enc/BusinessCycles. html [4] www. cnbc. com/id/30727913/The_World_s_Highest_Corporate_Tax_Rates_2010? slide=10 [5] www. lewrockwell. com/schiff/schiff64.1. html [6] finance. yahoo. com/tech-ticker/peter-schiff's-3-reasons-why-financial-reform-will-fail-523726. html? tickers=xlf,faz,fnm,FRE,JPM,BAC,c [7] hmscoop. com/ [8] www. realclearmarkets. com/articles/2011/11/11/the_fallacy_of_persistent_credit_creation_99362. html [9] blog. heritage. org/2009/08/28/obama’s-tripling-of-the-national-debt-in-pictures/[10] www. fee. org/library/books/economics-in-one-lesson/#0.1_L15