Personally, I think Ron Paul would have made the best President if he were electable.
I do not believe he is, as the media treats him like someone who is amusing to watch.
It makes me sick the media has so much sway over the general populous.
I do have a question for you though, when you say "the way appropriation bills work" are you talking about the committees and markups they go through that we have established over the years, or by the general routing of bills mentioned in the Consitutuion?
Except for the specifications in the Constitution, the way bills are handled can be changed by changing the floor rules and other procedures.
Yeah, cause if you vote against a bill, how DARE you try to keep the money out of Obama's hands! You have to just let the dictator in chief spend it however he desires, otherwise you are a hypocrite....even though he never said the president should be able to spend money however he wished, so not sure how this makes Paul a hypocrite.
Ron Paul is extremely detailed and specific on the issues. In fact, more than any candidate since Reagan and Goldwater (even more than these two), Paul is an issue oriented candidate.
People vote for Paul, not because of his electrifying communication style but because of his ideas rooted in things like Austrian Economics, traditional foreign policy stances, and views on Liberty.
Can you name me one person who discusses in as much detail economic theory as Paul?
There has not been one in my lifetime
I think this may be the biggest grasping of staws I have ever seen on this board in regards to Paul.
He votes against bills but believes all earmarks should be voted upon.
Every other candidate has endorsed earmarks where congress does not vote to allocate the money.
I don't think this is hypocritical of Paul, but if this is hypocritical than the other candidates are 1000 times worse.
If everyone voted like Paul, every dollar would be earmarked and we would have a balanced budget.
Is that hypocritical?
No because the two are not contrary positions.
Again, Paul has never said that money in an appropriations bill should not be designated. He believes every penny should be earmarked. That he does that, is called "consistency" not "hypocrisy."
No, it isn't. Its taking back money for your constituents, that you think the Federal Government shouldn't have taken in the first place.
An appropriations bill is not a blank check for whatever you want. The money has to be designated according to the purpose of the bill. For instance, if the Feds designate 10 million dollars for FEMA in a hurricane struck area, you cannot just designate 2 million for researching sound currency....
But you CAN designate it for repairing Fishing piers that the hurricane destroyed...
Not at all. This is pretty simple logic. Not sure why you are having such a problem with it.
Legislators pass a bill for (using one example), 100 million dollars for FEMA work in a national disaster area. The Congressman votes against the bill. But, knowing that the bill is going to pass, and that you cannot stop it, you "earmark" however much you can for practical use for your constituents, rather than writing Obama a 100 million dollar blank check, to use for his bloated bureaucracy.
Again, not sure how you are not getting this. Had Paul not did as he did, the money would just have been used on much WORSE things, which may have been bad for his constituents.
Not so. A bill defines the general purpose for the appropriation of a particular block of money. "Earmarks" do not add a single penny to the bill. They simply designate where the block of money is to be spent, rather than simply handing that block of money over to its corresponding bureaucracy, to spend as it wills.
"That's because the earmarks do not add money - they simply direct money that is already being spent. The $16 billion dollars in last year's federal budget for earmarks (less than 1 percent of the total budget) would not have been saved without the earmarks. The same amount of money would have been spent to build roads and bridges, fund defense projects and schools and all the other things the government does. The only difference is that the administration would decide the specifics of how the money was spent instead of members of Congress doing it. "
I am saying that Ron Paul earmarking money to be spent on something that the Constitution does not grant the authority to the federal government to do is hypocrisy given his self proclaimed beliefs.