Paul's Principles Are Guided by Constitution

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Sept 3, 2001 | by Hans S. Nichols

A self-described strict constitutionalist, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas believes the government should get out of the business of meddling in the lives of its citizens.

Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) does not mind voting alone. In fact, this veteran legislator is used to it. He often is the lone dissenter on obscure bills about which most of his colleagues have thought too little. That's because Paul looks for explicit `constitutional legitimacy before voting for any piece of legislation. As the late Treasury secretary William Simon once put it.' Paul is the "one exception to the Gang of 535" on Capitol Hill.

Trained as a physician and then as a flight surgeon in the U. S Air Force, Paul has a medical practice in Brazoria County, Texas. At the end of his first stint in Congress (1977-1985) Paul voluntarily term-limited himself and returned to his medical duties. As a specialist in obstetrics/gynecology, Paul has delivered more than 4,000 babies. He is the author of several books, including a Challenge to Liberty, The Case for Gold and A Republic, If You Can Keep It.

As the Libertarian Party candidate for president in 1988, Paul ran third with 432,000 votes. He was re-elected to Congress in 1997 after defeating a lapsed Democrat who switched parties for a seat on the influential House Ways and Means Committee.

His consistently conservative voting record prompted a colleague to note, "Ron Paul personifies the Founding Fathers' ideal of the citizen-statesman. He makes it clear that his principles will never be compromised, and they never are." Another colleague put it this way: "There are few people in public life who, through thick and thin, rain or shine, stick to their principles. Ron Paul is one of those few."

Insight: Do you call yourself a libertarian these days?

Ron Paul: I don't hide from the term, but I wouldn't immediately volunteer that label.

Insight: Why is that?

RP: I call myself a "strict constitutionalist" but I believe the writers and founders of the Constitution were libertarians. Although I am a libertarian in a modern-day sense of the word, there still are a lot of people who read that term as "libertine."

Insight: What does a "strict constitutionalist" mean in today's political context?

RP: [Laughs.] It means you vote by yourself a lot. If you take your oath of office seriously, if you understand the "general-welfare" clause and believe in the ninth and 10th Amendments, you recognize that the Congress should be doing very little.

Insight: Just as an indicator, at what level do you want to see the federal budget?

RP: Based on the standard I just gave you, it probably would have to be reduced by about 80 percent. People say that's silly because we're too well-adapted to what we're doing. This is tree, but I fault those who would like to cut into the growth of government and at least moderate the current level of expenditure. I fault them because they endorse the principles of those who like ever-bigger government.

If you say, "What we must do is cut back on the National Endowment for the Arts," instead of defending the constitutionally correct position that there should be no National Endowment for Arts, you have conceded. The Congress made a feeble intellectual attempt in 1995, but it failed because, all of a sudden, the constitutional principle spelled out clearly in the 10th Amendment was ignored. The 10th Amendment says: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

So I don't expect the government to be reduced by 80 percent. I don't think we'll ever move in that direction unless more people advocate the clear principle of what the government should be for and what the Constitution is all about.

If we don't do that, forget it! The budget will continue to grow, the government will continue to get bigger and taxes will continue to increase. And I think the economy will continue to go down as a consequence.

Insight: Who on Capitol Hill do you find most sympathetic with your ideas?

RP: The person who votes with me most is Jeff Flake [R-Ariz.]. There also are a lot of others who frequently vote with me. On some issues, such as civil liberties, the drag war and some of the foreign-policy issues, my allies may be liberals.

The libertarian view of constitutional review means we want government out of regulating the economy, regulating our lives, and out of meddling with the internal affairs of the states. I believe in the 20th century the concept of freedom got divided and the liberals picked up only part of it -- civil liberties -- and they're not even real good at that anymore.

The so-called "champions" of civil liberties are also the champions of political correctness, which limits their credibility. Even the movement conservatives who were elected to defend the market are not very good at limiting government these days. Some of the things they do in the name of free trade and the free market involve protectionism and subsidies to big business.