"Will We See Ron Paul's Image On A Quarter?"

                                                     

In twenty years or so we may be seeing Congressman Ron Paul's image on a unit of our currency.

 Let me be clear:  I'm not a Ron Paul supporter.   First of all, I've never been able to get my head around Congressman Paul's advocacy of legalizing drug use.  Just can't see how that would make our society any less destructive than we are now.  Secondly, Congressman Paul has never fully explained his proposal for bringing our troops home from overseas.  Though I am a 22-year vet I really like Paul's idea of bringing most of our troops home and closing military bases in wealthy countries like the U.K. and Germany and Japan and Korea, who are able to reduce their own defense costs by relying on us.  And we certainly need to leave Afghanistan, and vow to never again try to democratize a Muslim nation.   However, there are areas in the world where we pre-position supplies and equipment and need to stay there should we need to react quickly to a military contingency that affects our national security.   Ron Paul has never explained the extent of his military reduction plans nor has he shown much wisdom by saying "let Iran have the nuclear weapon; too much like Jimmy Carter in this regard.

What I do support about Congressman Paul's proposals are his honesty with regard to our national debt and the need to deeply cut spending...and to do it quickly and severely.   If our folks ever took a hard look on what we have to do to re-pay that debt, and how hard that is going to be, they would realize, under current spending rates, we are never going to get a balanced budget.  Even the most restrictive spending plan proposed by Republicans leaves us another $8 billion in debt ($24 trillion dollars!) by the year 2020.  Let's not even discuss Obama's plans; it is simply built on feathery light dreams of fantasy revenue that doesn't exist, even if we taxed billionaires at 100 percent of income.

I also applaud Congressman Paul's honesty.  He's the only politician I know who offers honest answers to real problems.  As I watch the Republican presidential candidates on the debate floor, I see them look over at Congressman Paul when he speaks; I would give a lot to read their minds at that moment.  They know Paul is speaking the truth about our problems but dare not admit that Paul's solutions on the budget are really the only viable solution for solving them.  Obama is no better.

So, Ron Paul will not be elected President.  Why?  Because, like me, too many folks are squeamish about his ideas on legalizing drugs and his ideas on defense and national security.

No, he won't be elected President.  But, as we get closer to a Greece-type shutdown, as we begin to feel the effects of runaway inflation, the collapse of the dollar, and the realization that our standard of living is going to go down, without any hope for a recovery, folks will look back on Congressman Paul's warnings and wished they had listened to him.

At that time, we'll have a whole Congress full of people who said they knew it all the time!  Then, some Congressional commission will recommend Ron Paul be honored on the face of our currency, and be awarded a Congressional Gold Medal.

Sadly, our gold reserves will be sitting in a vault in Peking so we'll have to mint the coin in gold-plated tin.