and in just a few minutes i dig up stuff like this:
“Like him or hate him, Dr. Ron Paul doesn’t just talk a big game about fiscal conservatism, he lives it… Unlike the vast majority of politicians, he doesn’t just talk the talk, he walks the walk.”
Taking another step forward in 2011, the Texas congressman and darling of the more libertarian, Tea Party wing of the Republican Party is continuing to walk the walk, returning a whopping $140,000 in unused office funds to the U.S. Treasury for the purpose of paying down the national debt. The sum is nearly 10% of his office funds and a 40% increase over the $100,000 he returned last year.
In 2009, Ron Paul returned $90,000 from his office budget, and in 2008, he returned $58,000. It seems that with each passing year the 2008 presidential contender returns a little more of his congressional office budget to the Treasury, though as an ardent critic of the Federal Reserve and its inflationary monetary policy, Ron Paul might quip that he’s just trying to keep up with inflation.
Congressman Paul isn’t the only House member who runs an annual office surplus. Across the aisle, Congressman Bill Owens (D-NY), who joined the ranks of Congress after winning the hotly-contested NY-23 special election in 2009, has also returned a portion of his congressional office budget this year. Last month, his office reported a surplus of over $230,000- 15% of his annual allotment and even more than Congressman Paul’s surplus.
and this:
This implication seems very fishy beyond just that, however. Why would a politician worth $4.9 million nickel and dime his own non-profits (in amounts such as $230.50, $323.60, $403.70, & $646.50 for a total of $15,000) over a period of 10 years while simultaneously returning $100,000-$140,000 of his office’s budget to the U.S. Treasury on a repeated annual basis?
Newly elected leader Ron Paul delivers his acceptance speech to a crowd of tiny versions of himself on the planet New Texas.
NEW TEXAS, GALAXY OF LIBERTARIUS—In the largest political victory of his career, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) was elected Supreme Ruler of the planet of New Texas today, a remote, fiscally conservative planet populated by 1 billion tiny versions of himself.
"My people, I stand before you today to announce that I, Ron Paul of Earth, accept this position as your planet’s benevolent ruler," said Emperor-elect Paul, smiling before millions of 18-inch-high Ron Pauls, who alternately applauded, cheered, and chanted, "You are our supreme leader," at a victory rally held minutes after the Ron Paul News Network declared him the projected winner of the 2012 election. "From this day forth, the planet of New Texas shall be a veritable utopia for Ron Pauls of all sizes."
Standing below the 50-foot solid-gold Ron Paul statue that adorns the city plaza of Paulville, New Texas' capital city, Paul thanked the crowd and promised to "do right by the people of New Texas, who made the right choice at the polls today." Ten minutes of sustained applause later, Paul took a moment to raise his campaign manager, Ron Paul CCN-14139-093, to eye level and personally thank him for "knocking this one out of the park." Paul then thanked his wife, Carol, and their five children who, not being Ron Paul, will live in orbit around New Texas.
Ron Paul thanks his tiny campaign staff.
After eight more minutes of applause, Paul promised sweeping reforms throughout New Texas.
"From here, we proceed into a new era of lean government, low taxes, and personal liberty, not just for the ruling class, but for each and every hardworking, right-thinking miniature replica of myself," he announced to the high-pitched squeals of the cheering throng. “Together, we shall build a better New Texas and a better Libertarius!”
hippiechick
Did you ever grow anything in the garden of your mind?
Location: topsy turvy land Gender: Zodiac: Chinese Yr:
Location: Perched on the precipice of the cauldron of truth
Posted:
Jun 26, 2012 - 1:59pm
Romulus wrote:
States, counties and townships. Some more than others, and it depends on how well you can apply for them. My little town has become quite good at it.
I guess I'm confused by the fact that a district needs any authority on its own budget. How does the Fed govt get the districts revenues anyway? Or is this just another case of the nanny state?
If the power exists, you can count on the authoritarians to fight over it.
And to think, the states created the Fed govt.
Congress has plenary authority over the District. It can legislate for the District any time it so chooses. It has that power, but does not necessarily have to exercise it.
Currently, the District's Charter — which was established by an Act of Congress — requires that all permanent acts duly adopted by the District be transmitted to Congress for a 30-day passive review period. If Congress does not actively disapprove by joint resolution the act before it within the prescribed period, the act automatically becomes effective law for the District.
The District is required to submit a budget request to Congress each spring. That request act never becomes law. Instead, Congress uses it to craft its own budget for the District, which it includes in one of its appropriation acts. If the appropriation act is delayed, the District's budget is held hostage for the ensuing fiscal year until the appropriations fight in Congress is resolved. In recent years, that has meant that the District's budget is subject to the same continuing resolutions that are used to fund "other" federal agencies. In sum, the District is treated as if it were a federal agency. The shutdown of the federal government that was threatened last year would have resulted in a corresponding shutdown of the District government.
So, what this proposed bill would do is allow the District to adopt its own budget for locally generated revenues, sparing it from having to be included within the federal appropriations process. The budget adopted by the District by act would still have to be transmitted to Congress for the passive review process that applies to all District legislation. But it still would be streamlined compared to the requriement that it be part of a federal appropriations act.
Rand Paul is trying to gain leverage by making the District — and Democrats and some Republicans who support more autonomy for the District — choose between this budget autonomy and its already-on=the-books laws pertaining to guns, abortion, and unions. He is using the District as a guinea pig or incubator for ideas he can't impose on anyone else .
All this is why the District license plates state: Taxation Without Representation.
The budget authority in question would involve only local District funds.
The District does receive federal subsidies, but those would still have to be part of a federal appropriations act.
We are talking about allowing the District to decide for itself how to spend its locallly generated revenues.
Edit: And every state receives federal grants.
States, counties and townships. Some more than others, and it depends on how well you can apply for them. My little town has become quite good at it.
I guess I'm confused by the fact that a district needs any authority on its own budget. How does the Fed govt get the districts revenues anyway? Or is this just another case of the nanny state?
If the power exists, you can count on the authoritarians to fight over it.
The bill in question would allow the District to approve its local budget each year without having to have it made part of a federal appropriations act.
Rand is attaching riders to a purely local issue (District budget autonomy), and, as he says in the linked article I posted, he is doing it because he sees these (guns, abortion, unions) as national issues and he wants to send some kind of message.
As I said, so much for allowing local issues to be decided locally.
If any part of their budget is federally subsidized, or involves grants, then I see his point.
Location: Perched on the precipice of the cauldron of truth
Posted:
Jun 26, 2012 - 1:24pm
Romulus wrote:
Rand is not Ron. They are different in many ways. Usually when he does something, its for a good reason. I haven't look into this much, but anything that get's Libermans undies in a bind is probably a good thing.
ps. It looks his use of law in this case, is to stop tax payer funded abortion and facilitate the 2nd amendment.
The bill in question would allow the District to approve its local budget each year without having to have it made part of a federal appropriations act.
Rand is attaching riders to a purely local issue (District budget autonomy), and, as he says in the linked article I posted, he is doing it because he sees these (guns, abortion, unions) as national issues and he wants to send some kind of message.
As I said, so much for allowing local issues to be decided locally.
Rand is not Ron. They are different in many ways. Usually when he does something, its for a good reason. I haven't look into this much, but anything that get's Libermans undies in a bind is probably a good thing.
ps. It looks his use of law in this case, is to stop tax payer funded abortion and facilitate the 2nd amendment.
Add Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) to the list of Republicans eager to change the District’s laws on guns, abortion and labor unions.
Ahead of a scheduled Wednesday morning markup of a bill to give D.C. budget autonomy, Paul has proposed a handful of amendments that could delay consideration of Sen. Joseph Lieberman’s (I-Conn.) measure, once again tying controversial add-ons to a key legislative priority for District leaders.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) wants to change the District’s laws on a host of topics. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters) Lieberman’s bill, which has strong support from Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) and other local officials, would let the city spend its own money once the mayor and D.C. Council have agreed on a budget, without waiting for Congress to grant approval. The measure would also let the city decide when to begin its fiscal year, rather than conforming to the federal calendar. (Most states begin their fiscal year July 1, making it easier to plan school budgets, while D.C.’s fiscal year begins Oct. 1.)
But Paul’s proposed amendments could prompt supporters of District budget autonomy to ask Lieberman to pull his bill.
“The status right now is uncertain. There’s a lot of concern about amendments that have been filed,” Lieberman said Tuesday afternoon. He said he would decide “by the end of the day” whether his Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee would proceed with the bill, and that he had essentially left the decision up to District leaders.
In November, city officials asked Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) to put off consideration of his D.C. measure because it included a ban on the city spending its own money to pay for abortions. And in 2010, Democrats shelved a bill that would have granted the District a voting member of Congress because gun-rights supporters threatened to attach language loosening the city’s firearms laws.
One Paul amendment would require the District to allow residents to obtain concealed weapon permits for handguns, and would require the city to honor permits issued to residents of other states. Another amendment would make the District “establish an office for the purpose of facilitating the purchase and registration of firearms by DC residents,” in response to reports that there is only one licensed gun dealer in the city.
Paul has also submitted an amendment to codify the city-funded abortion ban. The prohibition — a continuing source of frustration for local leaders that is strongly supported by anti-abortion groups — has been extended via appropriations bills every year that Republicans have controlled one or both chambers of Congress since the mid-1990s.
Paul proposed another amendment saying “membership in a labor organization may not be applied as a precondition for employment” in the District, and protecting employees “from discrimination on the basis of their membership status” in a union.
“I think it’s a good way to call attention to some issues that have national implications,” Paul said in an interview Tuesday. “We don’t haveover the states but we do for D.C.”
Asked his view on the District’s lack of voting representation in Congress, Paul said: “I don’t know what the answer to that is. It’s an anomaly, but it’s an anomaly that we’ve lived with for a long time and I don’t see it changing.”
The son of Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), Rand Paul has become popular in his own right within the conservative movement and has been discussed as a possible presidential contender in 2016 and beyond.
Washington — Saturday's Louisiana Republican State Convention in Shreveport promises to be a political donnybrook for the ages. A fight pitting the Ron Paul forces against the rest of the party is likely to lead the convention to split into two competing meetings that will proceed to put together two, somewhat different Louisiana delegations to send the Republican National Convention in Tampa in August, and leaving it to the national GOP's Contest Committee to sort it out...
Ron Paul's campaign accused security officials at Saturday's state GOP convention in Louisiana of assaulting some of their supporters, resulting in one suffering a dislocated prosthetic hip and another having some of his fingers broken...
“I’m handicapped! I need a doctor!” “Sir, this is the chairman!” The Louisiana State Republican Convention descended into chaos Saturday morning, with several delegates being arrested and the convention chairman being thrown to the ground by police. Sources report that state party officials panicked when it became clear that Ron Paul delegates commanded a decisive majority of the delegates on the floor – at least 111 of 180 (62%)...
Have certain parts of the Constitution become irrelevant, as a former Republican leader once told me at a Foreign Affairs Committee hearing? At the time, I was told that demanding a Congressional declaration of war before invading Iraq, as Article I Section 8 of the Constitution requires, was unnecessary and anachronistic. Congress and the president then proceeded without a Constitutional declaration and the disastrous Iraq invasion was the result.
Last week, Obama administration officials made it clear that even the fig leaf of Congressional participation provided by the 2003 "authorization" to use force in Iraq was to be ignored as well. In a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta stated clearly and repeatedly that the administration felt it was legally justified to use military force against Syria solely with "international permission". Such "international permission" could come by way of the United Nations, NATO, or some other international body. Secretary Panetta then told Senator Sessions that depending on the situation, the administration would consider informing Congress of its decision and might even seek authorization after the fact.
While Senator Sessions expressed surprise at the casual audacity of Panetta in making this statement, in reality his was just a bluntly stated explanation of what has been, de facto, the case for many years. When President Obama committed the US military to a pre-emptive war against Libya last year, for example, Congress was kept completely out of the process. Likewise, military action in Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, and so on, proceed without a Congressional declaration. In fact, we haven’t had a proper, constitutional declaration of war since 1942, yet the US military has been engaged in Korea, Lebanon, Iraq, Bosnia, Liberia, Haiti, and Libya with only UN resolutions as the authority. Congress’s only role has been authorizing funds, which it always does without question, because one must "support the troops".
Of course we should reserve our harshest criticism for Congress rather than the Administration. If the people’s branch of government abrogates its Constitutional authority to the Executive branch, who is to blame? Who is to blame that Congress as a body will not stand up and demand that the president treat the Constitution as more than an anachronistic piece of paper, or merely a set of aspirations and guidelines? The Constitution is the law of the land and for Congress to allow it to be flouted speaks as badly about Congress as it does about a president who seeks to do the flouting.
Just last week the administration announced that it would begin providing material support to the rebels who seek to overthrow the Syrian government. Was Congress involved in this decision to take sides in what may develop into a full-fledged civil war? And what of reports that US special forces may already be operating inside Syria? Still, Congress sits silently as its authority is undermined. Does anybody really wonder why approval numbers for Congress are so low?
Many of my colleagues who stood by as then-President Bush used the military as a kind of king’s army are now calling for Congress to act against this president for openly admitting that is his intent. I agree it is time for Congressional action in response to these attacks on our Constitution, but the solution is simple and Constitutional. The solution is simply voting to withhold funds, since Congress has the power of the purse. No money for undeclared wars!
