Ron Paul has a "Plan to Restore America" that is opposite of nearly everything that I believe this movement stands for with the exception of a couple things, namely foreign and monetary policy.

His plan includes:

* Fire 10% of federal workers
* Lower the corporate tax to 15% (currently 35% for big corporations)
* Extend the Bush tax cuts
* Abolish the estate tax (which only taxes estates over $5 million)
* Abolish the capital gains tax (Warren Buffet would pay even less in taxes)
* Repeal "Obamacare" (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act)
* Repeal Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act

To me, it looks like he's giving HUGE tax breaks to the 1% while cutting the programs and benefits that help the 99% and getting rid of the regulations that protect us from corporations.

You can read his plan here: http://www.ronpaul2012.com/the-issues/ron-paul-plan-to-restore-america/

Anyone agree or disagree?

I agree with the first point. The GAO has shown that there are about 180 duplicate federal programs that are wasting about $200billion worth of tax dollars. I'd hate to put people out of work, but I'm sure with the exorbitant amount of money they are making they could start up a private industry or organization (NPO of FPO) if they wanted to.

I don't agree with point number 2. i haven't heard him mention that so I would need to see sources.

I completely agree with point 3. Bush was the worst thing that ever happened to this country, and his tax cuts for the wealthy was probably in the top 5 catastrophes. He dropped the taxes from 40% to about 33%, and undoing that would be a major step in the right direction.

I don't agree with point 4 as it stands, but again I would need to see more.

I don't have any info on point 5.

Obamacare needs a lot of work, across the board.

And point 7, again I need more research.

I accidentally put the wrong link in my post, but I edited it now. This is the link to his plan: http://www.ronpaul2012.com/the-issues/ron-paul-plan-to-restore-america/

Some of the things such as the elimination of the capital gains tax aren't clear in the summary, but can be found in the data below.

I also want to make it clear that Ron Paul supporters are more than welcome in Occupy FM and I don't want to make anyone feel bad for supporting him. I just want to make a point and open it up for a healthy discussion.

On our Oct 15 demonstration, I asked all the RP people a simple question... what does Ron Paul offer these people?.  Well, they only had one suggestion... cutting the Federal Reserve.  Other than that, nada.  I don't know why they were there, Ron Paul is definitely contrary to our objectives, even his supporters couldn't come up with anything.  

Ron Paul supports the 10th Amendment, for starters. He believes in the power of the people and the states, and that it should be greater than that of the Federal Government. As it should be.

You said it yourself, he wants to get rid of the Bush tax cuts, which is what our movement has been fighting for.

He wants to bring our soldiers home, and stop these ridiculous wars that really are only for oil control.

He wants to cut $1trillion from federal spending in his first year alone, and try to return us to an annual surplus. The specific departments he wants to eliminate are the departments of commerce, education, energy, interior housing, and urban development, as well as cutting a 15% cut to the defense department. Again, this is because states should control these programs individually, and because there is a massive amount of money that is wasted in military transactions, especially when considering our overseas expenditures, as well as purchases on weaponry even though we have more than everybody else. Our military, for example, is 17 times larger than the next largest military.

He wants to cut foreign aid so we can start aiding Americans.

He wants to establish TRUE free-trade.

He believes in the ideals of free education, even though he hasn't proposed a plan to make it so. Which is understandable, because that would require an entire overhaul of our educational system.

He believes in bringing equality in our court systems.

He believes that rights "don't come in bunches," in response to groups entitities and corporations being given personhood.

He is the Senator, along with 2 others, that pushed for the bill to audit the Federal Reserve, where the GAO found the $16trillion international bail out.

He wants to abolish the Federal Reserve, as you stated, which creates "financial bubbles," as well as creates debt with every dollar they print.

He pushed for giving the bail outs, not to the corporations, but to the people, and still wants to do that.

All in all, of all the political candidates, he is the only truly honest one, and the one candidate you can tell he wants to work for the people. If you look at his voting record, he has voted in accordance with his promises, and they have generally benefited the people and not the richest 1%

ultimately, he's the only candidate that is a constitutional candidate. take a look at the GOP debates this year. it will give u a good idea of what i'm talking about.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=V19-uLzz8k4

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdGsPioLLvQ

I said that he wants to EXTEND the Bush tax cuts, not get rid of them.

While our military spending is ridiculous and I support making cuts to it, cutting $1 trillion from the budget for one year would cause a lot of government employees to lose their jobs and would cause a lot of businesses that rely on government contracts to go out of business. I believe that it would result in something far worse than the economic collapse in Fall 2008. What we need right now is MORE government spending to increase demand which is what creates jobs. We sure didn't get out of the Great Depression by cutting spending, did we?

What kind of bail outs for the people has he proposed? I haven't heard about that. I've only heard him say that he's against the government doing anything to help people.

There are a few smaller issues that you listed that I could agree with, but for the most part he is against everything I stand for.

oh my fault i misread.

First, yes we do need to cut goverment spending, because our inflation rate and rate of debt increase is atrocious. So is the amount of money this government wastes. For example, the government pays up to 6 times as much for military contractors to do the same job another contractor can do (at the same quality) only because they want to "maintain friendships." I don't think the American people care if we take our business to "Military Contractor 'A'" instead of Lockheed if it says us billions. And trust me, those sorts of companies won't be going out of business any time soon just because we would offer them less contracts, or even if we offered them none at all.

Stimulating the economy through job growth doesn't come from the government unless the government wants to create a business and run it like private industry, like they did when they greated Government Motors (GM). Creating jobs through tax dollars hurts our country because it takes those dollars out of the programs and other jobs that need it more (IE: construction, teachers, police, firefighters, social security, disability, medicare, medicaid, etc)

I really don't care if we cut jobs on the Federal level because we haven't capped salaries, overhauled, fully audited, or pretty much done anything to make the federal level more efficient. Its a mess right now. I just don't want my money going to these salaray-bloated bafoons who just keep doing the same job as the other offices the Fed set up, and furthermore, all of the money that they spend trying to accomplish whatever is on their agenda. because, you have to take that into account too. $1trillion isnt just comprised of salaries, it takes into account the money these offices spend too.

Also, when you consider the fact that there are a massive amount of jobs that actually have a similar or higher payroll than our president, cutting $1trillion wouldn't impact jobs on the federal level as much. If they got paid as much as people in the private sector ($54,000/yr), yes, but the average salary of a federal employee is $156,000 (yr), not to mention the people who have entitled themselves to raises, bonuses, etc. There are people in the government who are making $500,000 and $600,000. These are *public servants,* remember. And ultimately, this money IS a waste.

What I feel should be done, aside from capping government salary and getting rid of life-long pensions is that we should get rid of all of the duplicate programs as well as all of the federal programs that should be handled on the state and local level. For example, department of education is a clear breach of federal power, because education is not a federal issue, it a state and local issue, same thing with the department of housing, and the department of urban development, and many others, if not close to all of them.

I am more on Jordans opinion too.  Ron Paul is an ideologue... he speaks of what SHOULD be, but not whats practical.  We SHOULD have smaller government, but what does that really mean?  We SHOULD have different educational model... but what does THAT really mean??  Cut the fed... but then we have to back our money with a tangable, and create a completely DIFFERENT beauracracy to manage THAT.  

You know, as ideology, not having government involved in life is a good thing, but in practice it isn't.  We need to have the FDA to assure our country maintains a minimum health standard. As much as saying "Get Rid Of Dept of Ed" sounds, if we left it up to the states, we would not have a minimum standard of education for our children, and many states wouldn't even mandate school attendence.  

I have no problem with having a government, in fact its a necessity, and not our enemy.  The more we pay for it (if properly managed) the better our society will be.  I WANT our children to recieve the best education in the world.  I WANT to have good parks, streets, highways, museums, civil structures... I could go on about the things only the government provides for us, and we would go without if Paul got power.  

Our country didn't get into the mess its in because of big government.  It got into this mess because of lack of regulation and borrowing money to pay for our expenses.  It got into this mess because being in war is always good for the economy... until the war ends, and instead of the soldiers being on the goverment dole.. they would add to the unemployment.  Bush knew this, its why he got us into 3 wars!

Ron Paul isn't offering any solutions, only ideologic rhetoric about smaller government... feel good ideas with no pragmatic application to real life.  

question then, ron paul's platform aside, if regulation is necessary (with which i agree) from the federal government, instead of establishing federal programs, shouldnt it encourage or mandate each state establish these departments and regulate them instead? it seems it would be more efficient that way

Individual states being autonomous was a grand Idea, until the Civil War, but its water under the bridge.  We are now a union of states that interact with each other, and thus needs to have comperable standards.  To allow certain states to vary their standards undermines the efficacy of the rest.  

Education is the most important of these. Poor states will offer substandard education to their children ESPECIALLY if they don't have federal government support. Equal education is probably one of the most important mandates in our nation.  Its education that minimizes poverty, and its education that has driven our industry to the level it has achieved to date!  

Frankly, to allow the states to independently set their own standards will reverse all of the progress we have made to date industrially, and create an even larger inequity than we have now... The poorer states will start to train menial workers who will demand less wages to work in sweatshops.  

If you want to have .5% holding all the wealth, thats a recipe to achieve it.  

Originally Posted by Justin Vega:
question then, ron paul's platform aside, if regulation is necessary (with which i agree) from the federal government, instead of establishing federal programs, shouldnt it encourage or mandate each state establish these departments and regulate them instead? it seems it would be more efficient that way

I guess to more directly address the efficiency question, don't you think that will add ANOTHER level of beauracracy to the equation?  Not only would we would have a state dept of education which runs the schools, but we would need an independent State Educational Standards Dept , and then we would need another federal dept that would enforce the states to remain consistant with each other.  

As I said, its water under the bridge since the Civil War.  If we want independent states that do not follow the standards set by the Union, they should be allowed to  seceed and exist with no federal funding at all.  

Here is an interesting little tidbit from NPR.  Remember Ron Paul is a Libertarian at heart, but after one stellar defeat with that party realized its not possible to win unless you are a republican or democrat- so he jumped ship.  His ideology is still vry much Libertarian.  

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/06/29/137478762/the-tuesday-podcast-libertarian-summer-camp