[NYTr] Online NewsHour: Ron Paul Interview Transcript

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

PBS - Oct 12, 2007
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec07/paul_10-12.html

Paul Envisions Smaller Government, Less Global Intervention
	
As part of an ongoing series of in-depth interviews with presidential
candidates, Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, explains his vision of limited
government, decreased U.S. intervention in conflicts abroad and details
his stance as an anti-war Republican.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Congressman Ron Paul, thank you for being with us.

REP. RON PAUL (R), Texas: Thank you for having me.

JUDY WOODRUFF: You are somewhat of a sensation among young people in
this country. They are -- you've broken all records for Web searches.
You're on MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, I guess more than just about any
other candidate. With all due respect...

REP. RON PAUL: Be nice.

JUDY WOODRUFF: ... you're 72 years old, how do you explain it?

REP. RON PAUL: Young ideas, a fantastic idea about individual freedom
and allowing people to do what they want and take care of their lives,
their lives belong to them, and get the government off their backs, and
offer them low taxes, and make sure I never mess around with the
Internet. Don't tax the Internet, and don't regulate the Internet.

You know, freedom is a very popular idea, and young people love it, and
they're open to ideas. And they like principled answers to our problems.

And older people seem to be stereotyped. You know, they get set in
their ways, and they're not as open to the ideas of freedom, yet, to
me, freedom is a relatively new idea. It was an experiment, you know,
with our country, but we have forgotten about it, and I'm reminding
them about this great experiment of freedom, and they love it. And I am
just so delighted when I see the young people coming.

JUDY WOODRUFF: They also seem to be attracted, among other things, to
your position on the war in Iraq. You want to get U.S. troops out of
there, not just get them out, but get them out as soon as possible.
You're the only Republican running who has that position.

Do you ever think there's something strange about the fact that you're
the only member of your party running for president with that position?

REP. RON PAUL: Yes, I wonder where they've gone, because just think how
much benefit the Republicans have had on the position I hold now. Just
think, I remember in the early years when I was voting, Eisenhower was
popular, stopped the war in Korea. Nixon wanted essentially to get the
Vietnam War over, didn't do a very good job, but that was why he was
elected.

George Bush ran on my platform. I'm running on his platform, you know,
a humble foreign policy, no nation-building, don't police the world. So
I think they have forgotten their roots, and they're hurting for it. I
don't know why they turn against these views that I'm expressing, which
are Republican views.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But how do you explain it? It puts you in the distinct
minority in the Republican Party. In all fairness, we should point out
you're a libertarian, as well. And what does that mean?

REP. RON PAUL: Well, I see myself as a Republican, the old right
position. I'm a strict constitutionalist. But that means that you're a
libertarian if you believe in the Constitution.

But the old right, the Robert Taft, you know, policies were similar to
mine. And that's very Republican. So I don't think this should be
strange to the Republican position.

As a matter of fact, I think that's why we're getting so much support.
I mean, just the other day, after the debates the other night, we went
to the University of Michigan. We had 2,000 people show up. So I think
it's a very popular viewpoint for Republicans.

And they love the idea that you can be conservative and still be
against the war and still be for civil liberties, and then also for
free markets and balanced budgets. So this is a very Republican
message. Rep. Ron Paul 	
	Rep. Ron Paul
Republican Presidential Candidate 	
We've created chaos. The longer we stay the more chaos and the more
expenses we're going to have. 
Iraq and extremism

JUDY WOODRUFF: On Iraq, as you know, the president, all your fellow
Republicans say the U.S. has got to stay there in one form or another
to fight Islamic extremism. Why are they wrong about that?

REP. RON PAUL: Because our presence there makes extremism worse. We're
more vulnerable to terrorism because we're over there occupying their
country, and they resent it. We would resent it if China occupied our
country. What if China came? They look different, they have a different
religion, they're going to impose their religious values and their
political values on us. We'd be furious, and yet we're over there, so
we incite the radicals against us. After 9/11, we went into Iraq. Iraq
had nothing to do with 9/11, we've occupied two countries now. They
were already complaining that our support for countries like Saudi
Arabia and our military presence in Saudi Arabia was one of the
inciting reasons for them to come here. So we did exactly the opposite
of what we were supposed to do. Now we're in worse shape.

Our military is run down. We've spent a half a trillion dollars. We've
lost all these men and women. We've had 40,000 serious casualties. And
all we can do is dig in our heels and say, "Well, we can't leave
because there will be chaos." We've created chaos. The longer we stay
the more chaos and the more expenses we're going to have.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Do you think that, if the U.S. left Iraq, pulled out of
that region altogether, that the Islamic extremists would no longer be
a threat to the United States? Is that what you're saying?

REP. RON PAUL: It wouldn't be that simple, because just moving away,
you'd still have the problems and the resentments. They're not going to
dissipate overnight.

But I'm talking about a noninterventionist foreign policy. The founding
fathers taught us about it, no entangling alliance. Don't get involved
in the internal affairs. If you eventually did that in the Middle East,
yes, we would be less vulnerable.

But just to back away a little bit and still have our puppet
governments in Saudi Arabia, support Israel against the Palestinians,
and be in Afghanistan, no, it's not going to change anything. As long
as we have this mercantilistic idea that it's our oil, we have to be
over there, we have to have cheap oil, we're going to be resented.

But you have to -- as long as we keep doing what we're doing, it's
going to get worse. If we start backing away, they might reassess
things. But we're doomed to failure. And the Republican Party has
already suffered the consequences, because they, you know, did so badly
last year. And it's going to get worse if we don't change our policies.

JUDY WOODRUFF: How do you define the U.S. interests that are worth
fighting for? If the U.S. shouldn't be in Iraq, shouldn't be, as you
say, in these entangling alliances in Saudi Arabia and other countries,
you've got U.S. troops now in South Korea, in Europe, what are the
interests that the U.S. military...

REP. RON PAUL: They don't serve our interests. They just participate in
our bankruptcy. We're spending $500 billion a year we don't have. It's
part of the reasons we have a financial crisis, a dollar crisis going
on right now. It's intertwined with our Federal Reserve System, because
we rely on the Federal Reserve to print this money and create money out
of thin air.

All empires end, end badly, for economic reasons, because you can't
afford them. If you look out through all of history, eventually they
collapse. And you may be militarily powerful, but eventually you
undermine the finances.

The Soviet system collapsed. I was drafted during the Cuban crisis. We
thought we were going to have a hot war. We never did. The Soviet
system collapsed, because they couldn't afford it, and their system was
nonviable.

Our system isn't viable, either. We can't have a current account
deficit of $800 billion a year. We can't owe foreigners $2.7 trillion
and think we can keep paying them interest and keep borrowing money.
They'll quit doing it, and that's why the dollar is weakening.

And that's why we face a major crisis. And all I want to do is stop it
from collapsing, and that means you have to change foreign policy. You
have to save a lot of money. If we want to tide some people over here,
the only way we can take care of the people who are sick and dependent
on government programs is by cutting somewhere else. And I say we have
to cut our empire back in order to save our economy here. Rep. Ron Paul
Rep. Ron Paul Republican Presidential Candidate Congress has no idea
what the CIA is doing, because nobody knows, other than what the CIA
is. It is one of the things that is not characteristic of a free
society. Cutting back on government's size

JUDY WOODRUFF: You do, as you are now, talk a lot, you talk often about
cutting back the size of government. What is it -- I mean, you've
listed some of the things. What are the main things the government
should stop doing that it is doing now?

REP. RON PAUL: Well, we should start doing only what we're authorized
to do. We should read Article 1, Section 8, and find those 21 things
that we're permitted to do and what Congress is permitted to act on.
That means we would be doing about 80 percent of the wrong things, you
know, right now.

But you can't turn it off like that. Like I already indicated, you
don't need to put people out in the streets, you know, that are
dependent on the government.

The easiest thing to change our plan on is: Don't accept this notion
that it's our responsibility to police the world. It backfires on us.
There's too many blowback consequences. There's unintended
consequences, and the financial is the big one. And so we have to
change that.

But at home, we -- I mean, why do we need a Department of Education?
And why should we have this Department of Agriculture, just to
subsidize farmers? You take money from the taxpayers; you subsidize
farmers; then, the taxpayers pay for higher prices in the grocery
store. And that's just coming alive again now because we're coming up
with a lot of inflation once again.

JUDY WOODRUFF: You'd do away with the CIA, I saw. Is that correct or
not?

REP. RON PAUL: Well, not all of the functions, but essentially so. The
CIA is what gets us into trouble. I mean, the CIA is what really
started things in the Middle East, because the CIA went in and
overthrew Mosaddeq in 1953. We put in the shah. The CIA murdered Diem,
or participated in the overthrow of the government in Vietnam, which
leads to trouble.

It's a secret government. Congress has no idea what the CIA is doing,
because nobody knows, other than what the CIA is. It is one of the
things that is not characteristic of a free society.

JUDY WOODRUFF: You would also do away with the Federal Reserve, and
you've mentioned the Department of Education and other things. You're
not the first person to run for president who wanted a smaller
government. Ronald Reagan, I mean, name comes immediately to mind. He
was very popular as president, and yet even he had a very hard time
getting government spending down in any serious way. Why do you believe
you could do where he had a hard time?

REP. RON PAUL: I can't do it by myself. There has to be a consensus.
And I think this is what my campaign is finding out, that there is a
consensus.

People don't believe the government any more. They think the government
is that group of people who take money from us and pass it out in
places like New Orleans and accomplish nothing. You know, they don't
see any success. They've given up.

Young people, especially, don't expect to get any Social Security. So
conditions are just ripe for this, because we have an imminent
bankruptcy coming on. And people are sensing this. This is why they
quoted statistics the other night, like 70 percent of the people in
this country say we're either in recession or going to be in recession,
but nobody here in Washington knows about it. Nobody on Wall Street
knows about it.

But the people do, because there's something very, very strange going
on. And it's the recognition that it's not working. And when it quits
working, we have to have a new system.

My goal is just to have a transition period so you don't have a
collapse of the economy and a breakdown of the political system, which
happens if you don't deal with this. And this is what's happened so
many times over history. Rep. Ron Paul 	
	Rep. Ron Paul
Republican Presidential Candidate 	
As a commander-in-chief, I could neutralize some of the antagonism in
the Middle East. Why are we threatening and ready to spread the war
into Iran? Plans to bring troops home

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, what are some of the first things you would do? I
mean, you've talked about doing away with the income tax. Would you do
that immediately if you were elected?

REP. RON PAUL: I can't do that by myself, but as a commander-in-chief,
I could neutralize some of the antagonism in the Middle East. Why are
we threatening and ready to spread the war into Iran?

Even the Democrats aren't willing to speak out against that. They say,
"Don't take any options off the table," even nuclear first strikes
against Iran. Now the Democrats aren't even saying bring the troops
home before 2013. You know, five years, they don't expect to bring the
troops home from Iraq.

Those aren't alternatives. And so I could do that immediately. I'd
bring that Navy back. I would bring the troops home from Korea. Let
them work out their problems. Fifty years is enough, 55 years, that's
plenty of time. They're begging and pleading to just be left alone, and
the South and the North would be together within five years if we
weren't there.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So just basically, again, defend the borders of the
United States?

REP. RON PAUL: Defend our interests, defend our liberties, and we do
not need to be occupying Europe and Japan, Korea, all these countries.
We have troops in 130 countries. We have 750 bases around the world. We
can't afford it, and it causes trouble for us.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Another question back here at home, you're an
obstetrician. You've delivered, what, 4,000 babies over the course of
your career in medicine. You did not, as I understand it, take Medicare
and Medicaid payments from your patients. You either took nothing at
all or you negotiated down. Are these programs you would do away with,
Medicare, Medicaid? And if so, what would you...

REP. RON PAUL: No, but I would -- I would have a transition period,
like I said before. I'd cut money from overseas and allow people who
are totally dependent to have this care.

But I'd let young people get out of Social Security and have them get
options to have their own medical care, because I was raised at a time
when medical care was provided by a lot of people. And they had no
government programs. And I never saw anybody out in the streets.

I worked in a hospital in San Antonio. It was a church hospital. It was
always the lowest charge or nothing, and everybody was taken care of.
Today everything is the maximum charge, because everybody is on
third-party payments. The government has to pay, and nobody says,
"Who's the government?" But the government can pay, so everybody gets
the biggest bill possible. Everybody gets extra tests.

So we have a system now that just encourages very, very expensive
medicine, and it diminishes the chances of the poor people to have
medical care.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So get the federal government out of medical payments
altogether?

REP. RON PAUL: Eventually that is the case, but certainly, in the
transition period, that's not my goal is to attack those programs. As a
matter of fact, I'm the only one that offers a way to pay for it. Right
now, they just add on.

The Republicans gives us prescription drug programs, and the Democrats
gives you S-CHIP, and they don't have any money. They're going to print
that money; that's all they're going to do. They can't even tax
anymore, because taxes -- we're taxed to the hilt, so they're going to
print the money, create the inflation, and cause the cost of medicine
to go up. We're on a foolhardy course that has to be changed.

JUDY WOODRUFF: A couple other positions I was reading about, domestic
or social issues, you are pro-gun rights. How would you prevent another
Virginia Tech from happening?

REP. RON PAUL: Well, I would think you can -- you know, freedom doesn't
give you perfection. But everybody who's responsible for their selves,
their house, their household, or their private property should provide
the protection. So campuses should provide protection.

My complaint about 9/11 was, the responsibility didn't fall on the
airlines. It fell on the government, and the government said, "No guns
on the airplane." Pilots weren't allowed to have guns. And the
passengers were instructed, "Never resist, you know, somebody, a
takeover."

So we did exactly the opposite thing. The airlines should be
responsible, and owners should be responsible. School management people
should have responsibility.

Most of our plants, in my district, are chemical plants. They're
protected not by government. You know, they have their fences and their
guards, and they're well-protected. So there's nothing wrong with
resorting to people assuming that private protection is pretty
efficient.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, on schools, there should be security, in the public
schools, as well as on college campuses?

REP. RON PAUL: The schools should be responsible, whether it's a
private college or if it's a school district, the school district
should be responsible.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And on airplanes, you said pilots should be allowed...

REP. RON PAUL: The owner of the airplane, just like the owner of an
armored car makes sure his cargo is safe, the airlines should make sure
we, as passengers, are safe. 
	Rep. Ron Paul 	
	Rep. Ron Paul
Republican Presidential Candidate 	
I'd like to ban the federal government intervention in abortion.
	
Government's role in abortion law

JUDY WOODRUFF: Abortion, you've said you'd like to make it impossible
for the federal government to regulate abortion, which would, in
effect, I guess, negate Roe v. Wade.

REP. RON PAUL: Yes, it would, because I think that's a state issue.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And then the states would be able to do away with
abortion.

REP. RON PAUL: That's right.

JUDY WOODRUFF: I mean, in effect, would you like to see abortion banned
everywhere? Or what's your position on that?

REP. RON PAUL: I'd like to ban the federal government intervention in
abortion. So since I've only been a federal official -- a congressman
and then running for the presidency -- I say that we should keep our
hands out of it.

And there are some extreme circumstances that I may not even endorse
but I recognize that we're always arguing about it. The states, they
should deal with it, because they're difficult. The more difficult an
issue is, the more local the solution ought to be.

Once you get into a difficult problem, and then you have one monolithic
answer, like Roe v. Wade, then you come up with a solution where the
courts legislate and allow abortion to be done a minute before birth,
and I can get paid for doing one of those, yet a girl, because she
throws her baby away, we arrest her for murder. There's something
awfully inconsistent about that.

And I have so much legal responsibility as a physician, if I do harm to
the fetus, I can be sued. So the fetus has legal rights, but we should
figure that out at the state level on the extreme circumstances and not
legalize abortion at any time during pregnancy, which is essentially
what the Supreme Court did.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Prayer in the schools, you would restore it through an
amendment to the Constitution?

REP. RON PAUL: No, I wouldn't restore it.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Not true?

REP. RON PAUL: I would remove the ability of federal courts to prohibit
it.

JUDY WOODRUFF: OK, thank you for clarifying.

REP. RON PAUL: So we should have no laws; Congress shall write no laws.
So local people should be able to do what they want.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And wherever they are in their school?

REP. RON PAUL: Yeah, that's right.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Voluntary prayer, in effect?

REP. RON PAUL: Right.

JUDY WOODRUFF: You have declined to sign on, as I understand, for the
federal pension that every member of Congress is entitled to. So my
question is, you're not worried about your later years? I mean, you
could live many more years, Congressman Paul.

REP. RON PAUL: This is one position that I think my wife might disagree
with me on. There goes our retirement. No, you know, I was in the
Congress in the '70s and '80s, and I've been back, so I've had a good
many years, close to 20 years. I've been in the military. So it would
be a nice pension fund.

But when I started in Congress, the first time in '76, it was even then
more lucrative than it is now, but it's a very lucrative, very
beneficial pension fund. And I could not see with me condemning, you
know, the system to on the side quietly participate in getting some
very good benefits. So I just said, "I'm not going to do it; I'll have
to take care of myself some other way."

JUDY WOODRUFF: Should everybody else follow suit, do you think?

REP. RON PAUL: Well, no, I don't think we should have those kind of
programs. I think citizens should be representing us in Congress and
the work should be reduced. We should cut their pay in half and let
them go home and work.

See, if I go home and practice medicine right now, the congressional
rules say, "You can't practice medicine." I don't want to take the
lucrative pension fund, but ironically, if I wanted to work extra on
the weekend, they won't allow me, because they say it's a conflict of
interest for me to go home and deliver a baby. So figure that out.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And just quickly, I understand traveling around the
country campaigning, you've run into people you've actually delivered.

REP. RON PAUL: Yeah, I think that's so neat. Because the other night,
we had a meeting up in New Hampshire. A young lady came up and she
goes, "You delivered me." And I said, "Do you want me to pick you up,
since I held you for the first time?"

JUDY WOODRUFF: Is she voting for you? Or do you know?

REP. RON PAUL: Oh, yes, she was a strong supporter.

JUDY WOODRUFF: All right, Congressman Ron Paul, thank you very much for
being with us.

REP. RON PAUL: Thank you.

JUDY WOODRUFF: We appreciate it.

RAY SUAREZ: For more on Congressman Paul, you can visit our Vote 2008
Web site at PBS.org. All of our candidate interviews and campaign
updates are also available there.