Ron Paul's Fiscal Hypocrisy

Let's say I want to quit smoking cigarettes for the purpose of saving money and also for health reasons. Pack a day is almost $2,000 a year. I tell everyone I know I'm going to quit smoking.

My co-worker and I car pool and he smokes. I ask him to quit smoking in the car but he refuses, citing personal liberty. He asks me if I want one of his cigarettes. He says he's going to buy them anyway and he would happily earmark two or three cigarettes per day out of his supply for my use.

Every day after lunch I go outside to have a smoke. Other people at my workplace who know I've declared I'm going to quit smoking ask me what is going on with my stated desire to quit smoking. "I am quitting", I reply. This goes on for years.

Hypocritical or not?

 

And I am saying its not. Ron Paul supports earmarks; he believes every penny should be earmarked, and if his Congressional colleagues pass a spending bill, it is completely consistent, if he cannot stop the bill, to make sure as much as possible is accounted for.

 

Bad analogy. A proper analogy would be where you vowed not to BUY anymore cigarettes.

Ron Paul is not against improving parks or building Fishing piers...he is against spending the money. If the money is going to be spent, anyway, then he wants it earmarked. And that is what he does.

To NOT earmark this money, would be hypocritical, since Paul says every penny should be earmarked. He would be saying one thing, and doing another.

As it is, he is being 100 percent consistent.

 

Even if it is spent on things not authorized by the Consitution?

 

He also says that the Federal government should only do things authorized by the Constitution.

When he earmarks money for things that the Constitution does not authorize he is saying one thing and doing another.

In that regard he is less than consistent.

Are you being deliberately obtuse?

 

Not at all. You are either not understanding the way the system works, or you are intentionally trying to demean the man.

The money would be spent on unconstitutional things ANYWAY. I am not understanding how this is failing to register with you. The exact same amount of money, would have been spent on the exact same category of things, without his earmarks. Only Obama would have decided which projects would have gotten the money.

Paul could have voted no on it, and not earmarked a penny, and went against everything he believed in regarding earmarks...and the money would have still been spent on the same kind of civic projects...only instead of those things being quasi-legitimate, Obama and his bureaucracy would get to give that money to whatever they so desired.

 

Sounds like taking a tv during a city looting and saying "well, it was going to be taken anyway, might as well be me".

 

Yeah, cause not giving Obama a blank check is akin to stealing a TV.

Good Grief. :tonofbricks:

 

No, wrong is wrong. Your reasoning sounds just like that "these ill gotten gains have to go somewhere, might as well be me".

 

Non earmarked money in an appropriations bill, is given to the appropriate executive bureaucracy, to dispense as it chooses.

 

No, wrong is giving the money to the executive branch, without any stipulations. That would not only be immoral, it would be an outright dereliction of duty, and would go against Paul's stated belief that every cent spent by Congress should be earmarked.

 

If EARMARKED money is not spent? I have never heard of such a thing; not even sure that is possible.

 

You are incorrect.

Bills often contain earmarks for spending that are completely unrelated to the purpose of the original bill.

How could you possibly not know this?

 

Because it is not true. This is referred to as "Pork barrel" spending, and is frowned upon by the ethics committee (though you are right in that some people have done this...you are not SUPPOSED to do it).

Even the infamous "bridge to nowhere" (the 320 million dollar monstrosity pushed by Rick Santorum) was part of a highway construction bill.

 

So I am wrong - but some have done it?

That sounds as though I am right then.

 

So you believe Paul should have been unethical, and tried to sneak funding into the bill for completely unrelated items?

 

How in the world do you jump to that conclusion? :laugh:

Have you been actually reading what others write?

Or are you merely reflexively defending Paul?

That's not much different than what Obama supporters do.