For Immediate Release

October 7, 2008

Congressman Paul Calls for Congressional Page Applicants

Washington , DC Congressman Ron Paul is pleased to announce that he will be able to appoint a Congressional page this year.  

For more than 175 years, messengers known as pages have served the United States

To apply, please call Congressman Paul's office at 202-225-2831 and ask for Jennifer.  Deadline to apply is October 27^th.

For Immediate Release

September 15, 2008

Congressional Office Available for Assistance

UPDATE:  The Congressional office in Victoria is now available for constituent assistance at 361-576-1231

Washington , DC Congressman Ron Paul continues to be gravely concerned about the devastation caused by Hurricane Ike in Texas and getting help to everyone affected is his utmost priority.

Congressional offices have been staffed over the weekend for constituents in the 14^th district.  Those in need of information or assistance from the congressional office are advised to call 361-576-1231 and we will do our very best to help.  The Congressman's office is acting as a liaison between Federal agencies and constituents to ensure that available assistance is as accessible as possible, and that FEMA and other government agency activities are appropriate, efficient and helpful to Texans.  In addition, Congressman Paul's office seeks to ensure that private aid organizations are also allowed to help.

In addition:

The Red Cross can be contacted at 866-GET-INFO (438-4636) or TX211

FEMA can be contacted at (800) 621-FEMA or at www.fema.gov

For Immediate Release

August 4, 2008

Engel/Paul Securing Our Borders and Our Data Act

Washington, DC - Congressman Ron Paul is an original cosponsor of legislation introduced July 31st that would ensure that a traveler entering the United States would be subject to searches of their data and digital equipment only if a border agent has a reasonable suspicion to believe the traveler is or is about to be engaged in criminal activity.

In an August 1, 2008 front page story, the Washington Post exposed the ease with which the government can search and/or seize a traveler's laptop, blackberry, or other electronic device. A border agent can require any individual to provide access to private or other sensitive data with no cause. They can require the owner to surrender their password for encrypted data as well.

The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution acknowledges the right of the people to be secure in their persons and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures.  It is unfortunate that it takes legislation to remind border agents of this Constitutionally protected right, but it is apparent to me that HR 6702 is absolutely necessary, stated Congressman Paul.

For Immediate Release

July 22, 2008

Hearing on Oil Prices and the Dollar Scheduled for Thursday, July 24

Washington , DC - Last month Congressman Ron Paul, ranking member of the Subcommittee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy called for a hearing on the relationship between the falling value of the dollar and the recent rise of oil prices, noting:

The price of oil is currently among the most pressing issues to American workers.  Congress should be examining all factors contributing to the high cost of oil, and monetary policy is one of the key factors in the run-up in price.

That hearing request has been granted and scheduled for July 24 at 2:00pm.

Besides himself, 16 other Representatives signed on to the letter, including ranking member of the House Committee on Financial Services Spencer Bachus, and Chairman of the Republican Study Committee Rep. Jeb Hensarling. 

Confirmed witnesses will be:

• Economist Walter J. Williams, of ShadowStats.com which examines government economic reporting.

• Economist Robert Murphy of the Institute for Energy Research

• Economist C. Fred Bergsten, Director of the Peterson Institute

• Dr. Joseph Kasputys of Global Insight, Inc.

For Immediate Release

June 30, 2008

Congressman Paul Calls for Hearings on Oil Prices and the Dollar

Washington , DC - Congressman Ron Paul, ranking member of the Subcommittee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy, has written a letter to Chairman Barney Frank of the House Financial Services Committee calling for a hearing on the relationship between the falling value of the dollar and the recent rise of oil prices, noting:

The price of oil is currently among the most pressing issues to American workers.  Congress should be examining all factors contributing to the high cost of oil, and monetary policy is one of the key factors in the run-up in price.

The letter also points out that the price of oil in dollars has risen 39% this year.  Oil in Euros has only risen 30% therefore the degraded purchasing power of the dollar accounts for at least 80 cents of the increased price of a gallon of gas.

Neither the Federal Reserve nor the Treasury Department have been willing to take responsibility for the dollar's slide over the past several years, while American consumers have been forced to pay continually higher prices for gasoline, heating oil, and numerous other imported products upon which Americans depend   American consumers cannot afford to allow continued lax Congressional oversight of the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department's duties as stewards of the dollar, especially since the dollar is a major factor in the skyrocketing price of oil, the letter concludes.

For Immediate Release

June 26, 2008

Congressman Paul Reacts to the DC v. Heller Decision

Washington , DC - Congressman Ron Paul made the following statement today in reaction to the landmark Supreme Court decision: 

Today is an exciting day for the Bill of Rights as the Supreme Court ruled in a landmark case that individuals do indeed have a Constitutional right to own guns.  I am pleased with this ruling.  As a strong proponent of 2^nd Amendment rights it is encouraging to see the Supreme Court defining this important right as an individual right against federal intrusion.  Gun control laws virtually guarantee that only criminals and tyrants remain armed which, like concentration of power, causes crime and tyranny to increase.   However, we must now stand guard to ensure this decision does not result in the creeping federalization of gun restrictions.

I am pleased to report that last week we received notice that the Texas Department of Transportation will recommend the I-69 Project be developed using existing highway facilities instead of the proposed massive new Trans Texas Corridor/NAFTA Superhighway.  According to the Texas Transportation Commissioner, consideration is no longer being given to new corridors and other proposals for a new highway footprint for this project.  A major looming threat to property rights and national sovereignty is removed with this encouraging announcement.

Public outcry was cited as the main reason for this decision.  I was very impressed to learn that the TxDOT received nearly 28,000 public comments on this matter, and that some 12,000 Texans attended the 47 public hearings held earlier this year.  They could not ignore this tsunami of strong public opinion against the proposed plans.  I was especially proud of how informed my constituents became on the subject, and how eloquently and respectfully they spoke and conducted themselves, considering how upsetting the plans were for our communities in Texas .

This is a major victory for the people of Texas , and a reminder of what we can accomplish with civic involvement.  The informed and active citizen truly is a force to be reckoned with, as we have seen with the defeat of this proposal.  We must keep fighting the good fight, and remain ever diligent against the encroachments of big government.  We must do this if we wish to maintain our traditional standard of living in this country.  As tempting as it may be to simply live our lives with no regard to government, apathy will inevitably be punished by ever more government intrusion.  That is what this fight was all about.  We can win if we stick together.

However, now is not the time to rest on our laurels.  The bittersweet aspect of this victory is that we had to fight at all.  We took time away from family and friends, doing other things, to attend these meetings, inform others, write letters, post signs and submit our complaints, and we should not have had to.  Government should let us be, if we are peaceful citizens, harming no one.  In a perfect world, government could be trusted to act in the best interests of the people without overwhelming pressure of this kind.  This is not a perfect world.  Constant pressure is needed to keep government in check, and we succeeded this time.  But this will not be the last time citizen efforts and involvement will be required.  We still face many unreasonable encroachments of big government today, from confiscatory, economy-strangling taxation to creeping disregard of the right of habeas corpus and other Constitutional rights, to thousands of nuisance bureaucratic regulations interfering with our every day lives.  We have drifted far from what the founding fathers envisioned for this nation.  Last week was just one victory towards getting back on the right path.  We must continue to hold politicians' feet to the Constitutional fire.  If I had to guess, they will probably try to implement the NAFTA Superhighway again sometime in the future.

It is a never-ending battle, but it must be fought, and can be won.  I am proud to stand with my constituents in this fight, and in the other fights we have ahead of us.

What is the importance of the war in Iraq relative to other current issues?  This is a question I am often asked, especially as Americans continue to become increasingly aware that something is very wrong with the economy.

The cost of this particular war is enormous, and therefore its of great importance.  There is no single issue that is more important at this particular time.

War takes what would otherwise be productive economic capacity and transfers both that capacity, and the wealth it would generate in normal, peaceful, times into far less economically viable activities.  It also impacts budget priorities in ways that are detrimental to our nation.  I have often pointed to the fact that we are building bridges in Iraq while they are collapsing in the United States .

All war, but most particularly war funded by monetary inflation, bleeds a country in multiple ways.  Obviously, many of the young people who are in the military literally give their blood, and sometimes their lives, fighting in wars of this type.  Meanwhile, those who do not fight the war, but fund it, are forced to pay both the immediate costs, as well as seeing their long term purchasing power erode, as the twin pillars of debt and inflation are foisted upon the backs of current taxpayers and future generations.  Neither conspiracy nor coincidence explains steep increases in the price of gas as the war drags on.  No, this is simply a reality of the inflationary policies that, among other things, make this war possible.

As people are continually asked to choose whether our nation's teetering economy or the failed foreign policy of the past several decades is most important as we look forward, it is well for those of us who understand that these two issues are closely linked, to continue to explain this fact to our fellow citizens.  To fix the problem requires a proper diagnosis.

Oil prices are on the minds of many Americans as gas hits $4 a gallon, and continues to surge.  How high can prices go?  How can we solve these problems?  What, or who, is to blame?

Part of the answer lies in understanding bubbles and monetary inflation, but especially the Federal Reserve System.  The Federal Reserve is charged with controlling inflation through interest rate manipulation, however, many fail to realize that creating money, and therefore inflation, is really its only tool.  When the Federal Reserve inflates the dollar as drastically as it has in the past few decades, the first users of the newly created money go in search of investments for their dollars.  They must invest this money quickly and aggressively before it loses value.  This causes certain sectors to expand beyond what would naturally occur in the free market.  Eventually the sector overheats and the bubble bursts.  Overinvestment in dotcoms eventually led to a collapse of the NASDAQ.  Next we had the housing bubble, and now we are seeing the price of oil being bid up in the creation of another new bubble.  Investors are now looking to commodities like oil, for stability and growth as they pull capital out of real estate.  This increased demand for investment vehicles related to oil contributes to driving up the price of the actual product.

If the Fed continues with its bubble blowing policies of the past, the new commodities bubble will continue to grow, gas prices will continue to go up, as the value of your dollars go down.  We will see an overinvestment in these commodities as solutions are desperately sought for a supply shortage, which is only part of the problem.  Make no mistake, though, this is not the free market at work.  Government manipulations have added levels of complication and unintended consequences to the marketplace.

This is not the time for members of Congress to take political potshots at each other, or to imagine that the free market is somehow to blame.  This is the time to understand and fix problems.  That begins with making sure the decision makers have a firm grasp on the causes of the problems and possible effects of their decisions.  This is absolutely crucial if we want to get it right this time.  That is why I am in the process of calling for hearings on Capitol Hill on how the falling value of the dollar affects energy prices.

Governments need to get out of the way and let the people get back to work so that we can get our economy back on stable footing.  Our destructive regulatory environment, confiscatory tax policies, and managed, rather than free trade have chased many businesses overseas.  The bottom line is average Americans are being seriously hurt by these flawed policies, and they are not getting good information about the true dynamics at work.  The important thing now is to get the diagnosis absolutely correct so we can administer the appropriate treatment and move on to a healthier economic future. To do this it is absolutely necessary to address the subjects of central banking and fiat money.

Recently Congress sent the latest Farm Bill to the president.  The bill features brand new federal programs, expansion of existing subsidies, more food stamps and more foreign food aid.  This bill hits the taxpayer hard, while at the same time ensuring food prices will remain elevated.  The president vetoed the bill, citing concerns over its costs and subsidies for the wealthy in a time of high food prices and record farm income.  Nevertheless, this over-reaching, government-expanding Farm Bill will soon be law.  

The truth is most farmers simply want honest pay for honest work.  However, if the government is providing competing farms with advantages, and one wants to remain a farmer, one must seek a proportional advantage from government.  It is a difficult position for the farmer.  Some are better at qualifying for taxpayers' largesse than others as evidenced by the fact that more than 60% of the subsidies go to just 10% of recipients, edging out the small family farm.  This entire system is unfair and demoralizing.  It disproportionately benefits big agribusiness at the expense of struggling family farms.

Third world countries also lose with these continued government manipulations.  Agricultural subsidies lead to overproduction, which leads to foreign food aid as a form of dumping.   By dumping government-created agricultural surpluses, agrarian economies are artificially kept in a constant state of economic depression.  The would-be third world farmer cannot compete with free grain, thus he and his countrymen remain perpetual beggars rather than competitive producers.  Also, by keeping food prices high, we keep more of our own citizens dependent on government food stamps, instead of paying fair market prices for food.

Free trade helps farmers and consumers much more than this convoluted system of subsidies, surpluses and central planning.  Newly opened markets would create increased demand for what we produce.  There is absolutely no reason we trade with China , yet not with Cuba .  With energy and transportation prices as high as they are, opening up trade with a country as close as Cuba just makes sense.  The recent power shift from Fidel Castro to his brother Raul, and the somewhat positive steps he has taken, provides an opportunity to lift the embargo.  

Removing unreasonable, confiscatory tax policies would also make good farm policy.  We need to permanently repeal the estate tax, which would again take a devastating 55% cut of family farms upon death of an owner.  This tax will force the sale of many family farms, and further huge corporate agriculture.

Those who believe federal farm programs benefit independent farmers, should take note that after 70 years of this type of government intervention, small farms continue to struggle while large corporate farms control an ever-increasing share of the agricultural market.  Subsidies for agribusiness should be stopped and the free market should be allowed to work.  With commodity and food prices on the rise, Congress had an opportunity to scale down government controls and taxpayer funding of agriculture.  Instead, despite the warning sent by an 18% approval rating, Congress stubbornly opted for more of the same.