Liberty Maven

Ron Paul and incoming Kentucky Senator Rand Paul sat down with an interview with Anderson Cooper earlier tonight. It was an interesting contrast of styles with a similar message.

“Repeal the Real ID Act” is DownsizeDC.org’s oldest active campaign.

That’s because REAL ID – which is a de facto national ID card – lays the foundation for a future police state.

That’s why so many people have fought against it so hard for so long. And thanks to that resistence REAL ID still hasn’t been implimented, six years after it became law! A big part of this is because of your pressure.

And now there’s more good news . . .

There’s a silver lining in the monstrous, 1,926-page appropriations bill (H.R. 3082). This bill rescinds funding for a REAL ID “hub.” The House already passed the bill, and the Senate will consider it as soon as TODAY.

This hub would have created a centralized ID verification system, where states share driver information with each other. Without this hub, REAL ID suffers a fatal blow.

That’s why we’re asking you to tell Congress to support this cut in REAL ID’s budget, and to repeal REAL ID altogether.

You may borrow from or copy this letter . . . Read More »

I often grow sleepy reading the incessant and inane Twitter comments from the Left about Rand Paul. Granted, it’s hard for some to be enlightening in 140 characters or less. Given some of the comments though, I doubt they’d be enlightening with more characters at their disposal. So in that regard, thank gods for Twitter’s character limit!

Rand Paul’s ideas, like his fathers, do go beyond the length of a tweet, or a debate soundbite. And they are even enlightening, sometimes. To demonstrate this here is a recent tweet from an un-named and un-enlightening liberal individual:

DADT REPEALED!!
65-31. Sorry for your loss, Rand Paul…SUCK ON IT!

The casual reader would automatically assume that Rand Paul’s position on “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” would be strong on keeping it in place. However, Rand Paul’s actual position is that it should be left up to the Pentagon (or “the leadership of the military“) to decide whether to repeal it or keep it. The statement from his campaign also denounced the “political posturing” associated with the issue.

Paul’s position, at first glance, could be seen by some as political posturing in its own right, but digging a bit deeper, isn’t his position the correct one? Isn’t it also a libertarian one? It is essentially, a states rights argument. Shouldn’t the decision be made by those that are closest to the issue? This statement hardly demonstrates that Paul is against DADT repeal.

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Unless Congress acts to fix their mistake, a paperwork tsunami will drown every business, including yours, and all of your favorite organizations, including Downsize DC.

This coming tsunami is the new requirement that every business must fill out 1099s forms for every company with which it spends more than $600. This new burden was a provision of the Obamacare bill.

Everyone hates it. Both parties CLAIM they want to repeal it, but they can’t agree about where to fit it in their tight schedule, or whether or not to “pay” for the lost revenue with spending cuts elsewhere.

Well, they SHOULD cut spending. But let’s be clear: There’s NO revenue loss to contemplate. The 1099 requirement will cut into profits. That would mean less, not more revenue for our bloated government.

Please tell Congress to stop delaying and to please repeal the 1099 requirement immediately.

You may borrow from or copy this letter . . . Read More »

Quotes of the Day:

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” — attributed to Edmund Burke

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do the wrong thing.” — Michael Cloud

The so-called food safety bill passed. It took corrupt procedural tricks to do it.

We told you last week that the Senate made a mistake when they passed their version of the Food Safety Bill (S.510). Under the Constitution only the House can introduce revenue measures. The Senate trampled on this prerogative, and the House leadership wouldn’t stand for it.

Because of this . . .

We thought the so-called food safety bill was dead, and that we had won. Not so. Instead, we lost. Badly.

I’ll tell you how this happened, and what we can do about it. You’ll need to be motivated, smart, and intuitive to understand what’s been done to you, and that there IS a way to defeat these bastards.

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by Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital, and host of The Peter Schiff Show, broadcasting live from WSTC Norwalk CT from 6pm – 8pm Eastern time every weeknight, and streaming at www.schiffradio.com

This week Washington displayed the kind of “bipartisanship” that will bankrupt our country and wreck our currency.  Coming at a time when both parties say they want to address our long-term fiscal imbalances, the compromise extension of the Bush era tax cuts should be a wake-up call to anyone who somehow expected the American leadership to ever have an “adult conversation” about the country’s long term economic health.

The administration and Congress are prepared to take the bold political move of not raising some taxes while significantly lowering others and greatly expanding Federal benefits. The entire cost of the $900 billion package will be financed entirely by adding to the national debt. Talk about tough love. While other countries consider ways to live within their means, Washington is intent on devising ever more creative ways to delay the day of reckoning.

While Democrats wanted more government spending,they were unwilling to vote for broad-based middle class tax increases to pay for it.  Instead they want what Democrats have always wanted: higher taxes on the “rich.” Republicans want lower taxes, but as has become typical, they were unwilling to cut government spending to enable it.By running up the deficit both sides get what they want without any political sacrifice.Sure, they break their campaign promise to cut the deficit, but the political fallout that results will be far less costly than voting for the tax hikes or spending cuts.

In truth however, there are no real tax cuts in this proposal. The true burden of government is not measured by how much it taxes but how much it spends. Since this deal ensures that government will be more expensive next year than it was this year, American citizens will have to shoulder the added cost. Just because Congress has decided to deliver the bill with debt rather than current taxes does not mean that the spending will not be paid for. The only thing the plan accomplishes is to alter the means by which government spending is financed.

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We told you on Monday that the Senate violated Constitutional procedures when they passed S.510, the dangerous “food safety” bill.

To get around this, House Democrats plan to add the text of this bill into a “catch-all” budget bill.

Please tell Congress to oppose ANY bill that includes food safety legislation.

You may borrow from or copy this letter . . .

Gregory Conko (http://bit.ly/dVv8cZ) and Mike Adams (http://bit.ly/g3DUJl) provide many reasons you should oppose S.510. Here are just seven:

1. Increased inspections and paperwork won’t actually detect microbial pathogens
2. Costly risk-reduction rules (HACCP) are outdated and will stifle innovation
3. Even if the smallest producers are exempt, S.510 will still crush tens of thousands of small and mid-sized farms
4. By replacing the words “credible evidence” with “reason to believe,” S.510 gives the FDA power to outlaw foods based on opinion rather than science
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by Peter Schiff

If you’ve spent enough time in the gold community, you might be under the impression that the most imminent threat to the average American isn’t terrorism or unemployment, but rather gold confiscation. Starting with the fact that FDR confiscated gold during the last Great Depression, and continuing to the quite accurate forecast that we are headed into an even Greater Depression, unscrupulous coin dealers have been pushing investors to buy expensive “numismatic” or “collectible” coins that they claim would be protected from government seizure. The only problems are that the original motive for confiscation no longer applies and the “protection” offered by major coin dealers wouldn’t actually help you keep your gold.

THE TYRANT’S ORDER

In 1933, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 6102, prohibiting the private holding of gold and requiring US citizens to turn over their gold bullion or face a $10,000 fine ($167,700 in today’s dollars) or 10 years imprisonment.

Gold coin and gold certificates in an amount not exceeding in the aggregate $100 [about 5 troy ounces at that time] belonging to any one person; and gold coins having a recognized special value to collectors of rare and unusual coins.

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Quote of the Day: “”Politicians will always spend every penny of tax raised, and whatever else they can get away with.” – Milton Friedman

Unless Congress acts, on January 1, 2011, your taxes will go up.

New Year’s Day is when the 2001 Bush tax rates expire.

The White House and Congress are negotiating a “compromise” that may involve . . .

* A temporary extension of those rates, and/or
* A tax hike on the “wealthy”

As our sample letter below shows, if no agreement is reached, and the tax cuts expire . . .

* You’ll have less money to pay your bills
* Marginal companies will be driven under by the higher taxes, increasing unemployment
* Many new ventures will NOT be attempted because of the higher tax costs
* And worst of all, your children will be worse off because the federal deficit will actually increase

Here’s the crucial thing to understand . . .

* Tax increases don’t reliably raise actual tax revenues
* Tax revenues always run about 19% of GDP, no matter what the tax rate is
* Congress always spends as much as it can get through taxes, AND as much as it can get from borrowing
* So raising taxes WON’T decrease spending or reduce the deficit

It’s a fact . . .

Congress has a spending surplus, not a tax deficit.

Please tell Congress to permanently extend the Bush tax rates and get spending under control.

You may borrow from or copy this sample letter . . . Read More »

With all of the “sky is falling” melodrama over Wikileaks all over the media, I find Robert Gates refreshingly honest in this answer to Michael Yon. Yon asked Gates an intriguing question regarding Wikileaks and the potential damage it may do to sharing information between intelligence agencies. Among other things, Gates said the following:

Now, I’ve heard the impact of these releases on our foreign policy described as a meltdown, as a game-changer, and so on.  I think — I think those descriptions are fairly significantly overwrought. The fact is, governments deal with the United States because it’s in their interest, not because they like us, not because they trust us, and not because they believe we can keep secrets.  Many governments — some governments deal with us because they fear us, some because they respect us, most because they need us.  We are still essentially, as has been said before, the indispensable nation.

So other nations will continue to deal with us.  They will continue to work with us.  We will continue to share sensitive information with one another.

Is this embarrassing?  Yes.  Is it awkward?  Yes.  Consequences for U.S. foreign policy?  I think fairly modest.

Of course, now some people are making the claim that the information leaked may end up benefiting the Obama administration and the source of the leak may be the administration itself. Is this some kind of weird reverse trutherism? I doubt this claim is true, but it’s an interesting thought when coupled with Gates response above. Read more about this claim at reason.com.