[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 13846-13847]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


                         MISTAKES: JUST A FEW!

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, in the last few years in interviews on the 
economy, I've been asked what I would do if I were in charge. In 
answering the question, I usually started with explaining the errors we 
made that gave us the crisis. The interviewer frequently responded by 
saying that he wasn't interested in the cause of the problems, only 
what we should do now to correct it. This is a typical attitude in 
Washington, but we cannot expect correct policies to be implemented if 
we don't understand the cause of the crisis. Instead, we have pursued 
all the wrong policies. Let me list a few mistakes we have made.
  We have failed to recognize the true cause of the crisis. Instead, 
free markets and not enough regulations and central economic planning 
have been blamed.
  We continue to listen to and give too much credibility to the very 
people who caused the crisis and failed to predict the onset.
  A massive single-year debt increase of $2 trillion and a $9 trillion 
stimulus by Congress and the Federal Reserve verges on madness.
  This has entailed taxpayers being forced to buy worthless assets, 
propping up malinvestments, not allowing the liquidation of bad debt, 
bailing out privileged banking, Wall Street and corporate elites. We 
promote artificially low interest rates which eliminates information 
that only the market can provide. Steadily sacrificing economic and 
personal liberty is accepted as good policy. Socializing American 
industry offers little hope that prosperity will soon return.
  Inflating the money supply over 100 percent in less than a year is no 
way to restore confidence to a failing financial

[[Page 13847]]

system. Expect huge price increases in the future.
  We have set the stage for further expanding the money supply many 
folds over through fractional reserve banking.
  We deliberately liquidate debt, especially government debt, by 
debasing the currency. We refuse to accept the fact that the debt 
cannot be paid, and future obligations are incomprehensible with 
revenues crashing and unpredictable while expenditures are put on auto 
pilot with no new request being denied.
  There's an attitude that the deficit and inflation can be dealt with 
later on, yet tomorrow will be here sooner than later.
  Plans are being laid for a super regulator, even if it takes a 
worldwide government organization like the IMF to impose it.
  Promising the IMF $100 billion when we can't even take care of our 
own people's medical needs is obviously absurd.
  Plans are laid to massively increase taxes, especially with the 
carbon tax, that when tried in other countries didn't work and had many 
unintended consequences.
  A national sales tax, now being planned, sends bad signals to 
investors, consumers and workers.
  The deeply flawed neoconservative foreign policy of expanding our 
militarism in the Middle East and Central Asia continues.
  There's no end in sight for secret prisons, special courts, ignoring 
the right of habeas corpus, no penalties for carrying out illegal 
torture and a new system of preventive detention. We continue to 
protect the concepts of state secrets and Presidential signing 
statements. We are enlarging Bagram prison in Afghanistan, and there's 
no cessation of the senseless war on drugs.
  Indeed, as former Vice President Dick Cheney has said, we're in 
greater danger today than under the Bush administration; but it's not 
because we're not following the Cheney-Bush foreign policy of 
preventive war, but rather because we are. The Bush doctrine on war is 
still in place, and the economic failures of the previous 
administration are being continued and expanded.
  The policies required to provide a solution to this catastrophic 
crisis we face are available. We must apply a precise philosophy of 
liberty along with respect for private property ownership, free 
markets, voluntary contracts enforced by law and free minds.
  Also required is the adoption of a commonsense foreign policy that 
requires us to stay out of the internal affairs of other nations.
  Pretending that politicians, central bankers and regulators have the 
knowledge to centrally plan the economy and police the world only makes 
things worse. Realizing this provides the necessary first step to 
salvage our economy and liberty.

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