This house would vote Ron Paul

I'm very glad that both of us agree that the United States currently faces some serious challenges, which demand serious solutions. Like my opponent, I will spend most of this round talking economics. DeficitImagine spending $10,000 every second. That's enough to buy yourself a house every minute, a new car every few seconds - all of your material desires would essentially be fulfilled. At the end of the day, you will have spent only $864 million. At the end of the year - a whole year of spending $10,000 every second, you still would not reach a trillion. After two years, you would still not reach a trillion. It takes about three and a half years of spending $10,000 every second to reach that $1 trillion of debt. Last time I checked the federal debt was in excess of $12 trillion. And the worst of President Johnson's debt? A mere $2.6 billion (less than $25 per capita at the time). Our fictional $10,000 a second spender could reach that sum in less than three days. Surely the present crisis is much worse than Johnson's! ?Now imagine if Johnson had compromised, or bent his principles. Imagine if he had paid only 75c a dollar on debt to satisfy all the debt-conscious congressmen. Imagine if he had missed only one payment in order to pay for something somebody else thought was more important, as a compromise. Do you not agree that the power of Johnson's example lies not in his compromising and bending of principles? It lies in his resolute, firm and unwavering resolve to get the job done, and get it done right, does it not? As an aside, Johnson's policy only took away $0.1 billion of the debt and is generally considered to be a failed experiment by historians. So only four of Paul's bills have made it to a vote - and yet congress are the very same people who put the United States into this mess. Surely this is proof that Ron Paul is not a man to create troubles, unlike those who have had their bills and with them, destroyed America? To say that paying a salary to a man who has been proposing solutions to all the problems created by the hundreds of other senators is the "height of government waste" makes little sense to me. In that case, you might as well claim the best government is to pay a salary to each of a set of congress-clones who all agree with each other - and who work together harmoniously to bring America to greater ruin. Is that your conception of a utopia? What we've seen over the past few years from Obama is a very Keynesian approach to the deficit. Bailouts and big spending, all in the manner of America's World-War-II economy. What we have also seen is the failure of these policies. That's why we need to reverse course. Just as debt has continued to balloon, so too have many of America's poor remained poor, America's poverty increased, and America's income gap not significantly affected. My opponent is free to think Paul's measures childish and unprofound, but the question isn't complicated and doesn't require a degree to understand. When in debt, you pay it down. To pay more towards the debt, there is less available for other stuff. It’s that easy. Foreign PolicyAn example of a foreign policy direction Paul would have handled differently would be not invading Iraq. An example of a current issue Paul would handle differently is not giving foreign aid to Israel. Ron Paul's vision for America's part to play in the world is for the federal government to mind their own business and not police the world. I could elaborate on this, but do not have enough characters. Federal ReserveYes, the Federal Reserve is partially audited. The problem is they are still allowed to withhold information under certain conditions. The audit the fed legislation my opponent refers to was Ron Paul's invention, although only a watered-down version ever made it to the vote. What it revealed was that not only were trillions of taxpayer dollars spent keeping banks (who had caused the crisis in the first place) afloat, but that loans were also made to foreign governments without the consent of congress. And even if the American people know some of the details of what they're doing, they're powerless to stop them. There is literally no control and no oversight over the institution. Ron Paul provides a solution. He wants a complete audit of the fed and congress to regain control over it. In the long term, he wants to end it. My opponent claims not bailing out banks would cause a run on the banks. Maybe . .. and maybe the banks just shouldn't have been doing risky loaning in the first place, which they have every incentive to do if they're just going to get bailed out again afterwards. Regardless, if somebody really needs to be bailed out, the American government already has that power. Obama has done it several times. Do you really require a separate institution when another is already doing a good job? Especially when that other institution operates in secret and without any checks or balances on their power? EducationAside from home schooling, something that has needed tax credits to be associated with it for some time, Ron Paul's plan is to end federal student tertiary loans. This will mean tertiary institutions will need to start charging what students can afford, not the government. That will reduce the cost of getting an education, while saving the government lots of money. So it's a win-win, right? BusinessRon Paul is in favour of smaller taxes. That's good because it creates jobs, as businesses have more money to put towards wages. Under a Paul administration, business in America would be very similar, except that they'd no longer have all those special powers you and me are not entitled to. Indeed, most laws pertaining to giving businesses, or classes of businesses, special rights or responsibilities would be removed, and instead, they would have to pay much greater respect to the property rights of other people and businesses (because that’s where the lawsuits inevitably end up in these cases). In return, markets would essentially be free. Civil LibertiesWhile it is true American society has progressed in many respects, particularly with regards to equality, American legislation is now intruding on the civil rights of everybody, not just a select group. Ron Paul's plan isn't to go back to any period - it's to go forward. The next period must be that American legislation intrudes on NO civil liberties. I gave a number of examples of such civil liberties last round, so why does my opponent refuse to answer them? Getter' DoneObama has not staved off a depression. The depression continued long into his term. Today, the economy is showing some signs of recovery, but that's hardly Obama's doing. That's the natural swing of the business cycle. And yes, he has ended a war - well behind his own and his predecessor's schedule, and only at the cost of trillions of needless US dollars and hundreds of servicemen's lives. And yes, he is winding down another - again well behind his schedule, and again at a higher-than-expected cost and death toll. Obama has been a failure at following through his own policies, as well as dealing with new crises that come up from time to time. It's fair of my opponent to be sceptical, but as president, Paul would have two significant constitutional powers to get things done even if all of congress and the senate were against him - executive orders and the power of veto. I don't believe that everybody would oppose him, simply because if he was somehow to win the republican nomination and beat Obama, it would be an amazing miracle that would knock the socks off all his opponents. The presidency is a significant bully pulpit, but with Paul at the helm, every politician would be crazy not to fear the sudden unexpected mass libertarianisation of American voters. So how, exactly, could Paul possibly fail to get stuff done any more than Obama? That concludes my case. I'm glad that I managed to fit it all in!