Bob Barr is the best Presidential Candidate of 2008.

=== RE: the Quote === Cutting things like subsidies and welfare takes money directly out of the pockets of people who can put the money to better use than the government can. Spending money on some of these things helps our country become more prosperous. Not only that, but Bob Barr would be wholly unable to get rid of these things. The whole of congress disagrees with his libertarian minimalism, so it's very unlikely they would just get rid of programs that have lasted so long. As I've said before, Bob Barr would be fighting solo against all of congress - at least with McCain or Obama, roughly half of congress already agrees. The federal budget should be growing. Inflation and an increase in productivity gives the government more money to work with. A dollar today doesn't buy the same amount it did 5 years ago, so why should the Government still be forced to work with the same amount of money they did 5 years ago? The debt is only at 60-something percent of the debt. Which means to pay it off in one year [though I have no idea why we would do that], we would have to use 60-percent of our productivity to do so. The government would have to take at least 60-something percent of our income in taxes to do this in one year, but realistically, debt is something you pay off over time. Spread across a few decades [to reduce the debt to ZERO, this is], we would only have to use 5 or 10 percent of our wealth each year. And the fact that much of this debt is owed to US citizens anyway makes the burden even easier to bear than that. The debt is not out of control. As per the graph I presented last round, our debt was slightly more severe towards the end of the Bush Sr./Reagan years, and it was MUCH worse in the 50's. And if you take a look, we got out of that pretty easily. Yes, if everyone ONLY defended themselves, it would be a great world, with little violence. Bob Barr is willing to take one step towards this worldwide goal. However, realize that there are some people who don't like us. Now obviously, we should not ignore diplomacy in this. I think both other candidates, Obama and McCain, would be willing to be diplomatic before starting trouble. Especially Obama, he's one of the most natural diplomats I've ever seen. He's not even president, and already the world loves the guy. And I don't think McCain ever said he would invade Iran without negotiating at all. If he did, then it'll be easier for me to just stick with supporting Obama in this debate. Alright, now the economic issue. My opponent claims that the actual dollar value of GDP is what's important, not the ratio to GDP. Wrong, and I'll tell you why. The government's income is from taxes. Taxes are a percentage of people's income. The GDP describes the total income of people living here, so taxes are a percentage of GDP. Interest due to debt is a form of negative income. Let's say the debt is 9 trillion and the GDP is 15 trillion. With a 30% average tax value, the government has 4.5 billion dollars from tax to spend on whatever it wants. Let's say the interest we pay on debt averages at 10%. That means for every dollar we spend on repaying debt, we save ourselves from paying 10 cents extra. 10 cents per dollar is the negative income the debt would have given us, but paying it back removes this negative income, effectively giving us a 10 cent profit on every dollar compared to not paying off the debt. In this case, we no longer have the original dollar, but it was borrowed money anyway. But consider that there are things we can do with the money that would grant us more than 10 cents of profit in a year. We might be able to invest our money in social programs, making people more productive and giving us a bigger GDP to tax. We might invest in technologies or companies, increasing GDP and giving us a bigger GDP to tax. Let's say for every dollar we spend investing in company X, they'll have 50 cents of business the next year. That's already 15 cents to the government, with our 30% tax rate, so the money's working harder invested in company X[getting us 15 cents per dollarin a year] than repayed to our debtors [getting us 10 cents per dollar in a year]. And as an added bonus, standard of living in America raises [GDP per capita is a measure of standard of living]. So that 4.5 trillion would have saved us 450 billion in interest the next year, but instead we made 675 billion in profit elsewhere. I hope I have shown you why Bob Barr, as well as my opponent, are wrong about the urgency of paying off the debt. And as I said, Bob Barr will be less capable in getting legislation passed, since congress is made up of democrats and republicans. Obama is definitely a better pick than Bob Barr, and McCain probably is, unless he really said he would go to war with Iran without being diplomatic first. As far as this debate is concerned, he said no such thing, since nothing was cited.