Gary Johnson Gary Johnson just announced that he is running for President

[sailingaway]

You know, Ron himself would be a Gary Johnson supporter. He said so before. Whereas, although Ron appreciates Michelle Bachman, it's pretty clear that he wouldn't support her candidacy in the way that he would support Gary's.

That's the big difference. Neither Gary nor Ron is perfect, but they are both pretty damn good (thousands of times better than the rest of the field) and have different strategies for how to get themselves 'out there'. I think that, given Ron's own support of Gary, this forum should be more open to the idea of a Johnson campaign. I am surprised that he doesn't have his own sub-forum here yet.

Overall, this is a campaign for liberty: not just for Ron Paul or for the presidency. Imagine how great it could be to have a younger guy up there on stage to forcefully agree with Ron on all kinds of issues? We should all welcome this, I think.

Ron is generous. If Ron weren't in the race and if Rand weren't a factor, I could see Ron trying to raise Gary's profile that way. Compare that to how Gary talks about Ron. Also, Ron didn't say he would support Gary, I don't think. I'm remembering him saying he didn't know who else he would support. I'm not saying he'd support Bachman. I'm saying BAchmann invited him to speak with her in Minnesota to make a kind of pitch to his supporters and will try to keep those of his supporters who have been supporting her, with her. But they aren't coming here telling us we should be supportive of her. She's going for part of his natural base, but only by doing her own thing. The Fed is a definite pitch, but she has gotten behind that now, for a couple of years.

 

[BamaFanNKy]

Not to my knowledge. An earmark on money already allocated doesn't add spending for his district. The question on earmarks is whether or not you are going to give the president a blank check on how to spend the money, or if congress will preallocate it. Additive earmarks are a separate issue.

False choice fallacy.

Ron Paul was one of only four House Republicans to request earmarks for 2011 budget.

I really don't give a s***. I'm voting for Ron if he's still around come primary time. Fact is, Gary nor Ron will probably be in the race by then.

 

[BamaFanNKy]

The primary is not seventeen months away.

Though will agree with you on earmarks. Hate that Ron Paul inserts millions of dollars in shrimp subsidies into bills. Hate it.

Yeah, stupid me.... I should of considered the Primaries. But, I still think we are still early in the game.

 

[BamaFanNKy]

Adam and Gary get along:

 

[jmdrake]

Someone who's against earmarks, please explain what Ron said here that is not correct.

http://www.ronpaul.com/2009-03-11/ron-paul-on-earmarks/
Channel: C-SPAN
Date: 3/10/2009

Transcript:

Ron Paul: Thank you, Madame Speaker. I would like to address the subject of earmarks today. I think there is a lot of misunderstanding here among the members about exactly what it means to vote against an earmark. It’s very popular today to condemn earmarks and even hold up legislation because of this.

The truth is that if you removed all the earmarks from the budget you would remove 1% of the budget. So there’s not a lot of savings. But, even if you voted against all the earmarks, actually, you don’t even save the 1% because you don’t save any money. What is done is those earmarks are removed and some of them are very wasteful and unnecessary, but that money then goes to the executive branch.

So, in many ways what we are doing here in the Congress is reneging on our responsibilities. Because it is the responsibility of the Congress to earmark. That’s our job. We’re supposed to tell the people how we’re spending the money. Not to just deliver it in the lump sum to the executive branch and let them deal with it. And then it’s dealt with behind the scenes. Actually, if you voted against all the earmarks there would be less transparency. Earmarks really allow transparency and we know exactly where the money is being spent.

You know, the big issue is the spending. If you don’t like the spending, vote against the bill. But the principle of earmarking is something that we have to think about because we’re just further undermining the responsibilities that we have here in the Congress. And if we want to get things under control it won’t be because we vote against an earmark and make a big deal of attacking earmarks because it doesn’t address the subject.

In reality what we need are more earmarks. Just think of the 350 billion dollars that we recently appropriated and gave to the Treasury Department. Now everybody is running around and saying, “We don’t know where the money went, we just gave it to them in a lump sum”. We should have earmarked everything. It should have been designated where the money is going. So instead of too many earmarks we don’t have enough earmarks. Transparency is the only way we can get to the bottom of this and if you make everything earmarked it would be much better.

The definition of an earmark is very, very confusing. If you would vote to support the embassy in Baghdad which came up to nearly a billion dollars, that’s not called an earmark. But if you have an earmark for a highway or a building here in the United States, that is called an earmark. But if you vote for a weapons system, it would support and help a district and that’s not considered an earmark. When people are yelling and screaming about getting rid of earmarks, they’re not talking about getting rid of weapons systems or building buildings and bridges and highways in foreign countries. They only talk about [earmarks] when it is designated that certain money will be spent a certain way in this country.

And, ultimately, where we really need some supervision and some earmarks are the trillions of dollars spent by the Federal Reserve. They get to create their money out of thin air and spend it. They have no responsibility to tell us anything. Under the law they are excluded from telling us where and what they do. So we neglect telling the Treasury how to spend TARP money and then we complain about how they do it.

But just think literally: the Treasury is miniscule compared to what the Federal Reserve does. The Treasury gets hundreds of billions, which is huge, of course, and then we neglect to talk about the Federal Reserve where they are creating money out of thin air and supporting all their friends and taking care of certain banks and certain corporations. And this, to me, has to be addressed.

I’ve introduced a bill, and it’s called H.R. 1207, and this bill would remove the restriction on us to find out what the Federal Reserve is doing. Today, the Federal Reserve under the law is not required to tell us anything. So, all my bill does is remove this restriction and say, “Look, the Federal Reserve, you have a lot of power, you have too much power, you’re spending a lot of, you’re taking care of people that we have no idea what you’re doing, we in the Congress have a responsibility to know exactly what you are doing”.

This bill, H.R. 1207 will allow us, for once-and-for-all, to have some supervision of the Federal Reserve. They’re exempt from telling us anything and they have stiffed us already. There have been lawsuits filed over the Freedom of Information Act. Believe me, there’re not going to work because the law protects the Federal Reserve. The Constitution doesn’t protect the Federal Reserve, the Constitution protects the people and allows them to know exactly what is going on. We should enforce the Constitution. We should not enforce these laws that protect a secret bank that gets to create this money out of thin air.

So the sooner we in the Congress wake up to our responsibilities, understand what earmarks are all about, and understand why we need a lot more earmarks, then we will come to our senses. We might then have a more sensible monetary and banking system instead of the system that has brought us to this calamity. So the sooner we realize that, I think it will be better for the taxpayer.

Madame Speaker: Thank you, the gentleman’s time has expired.

 

[sailingaway]

To be honest, I never saw the poll where Ron did well in Texas for Senate.

Ron was a factor in $ for Rand in Kentucky. His name hurt him in the Primary, actually. I had to talk people off the ledge who didn't trust him because of his father.

http://publicpolicypolling.blogspot.com/2011/01/ron-paul-for-senate.html

(The other guy in the poll is a mega rich able-to-self-fund establishment favorite who has been sniffing around the Senate seat for a while, unlike Ron.)

Rand attracts some different people Ron doesn't attract, but also doesn't yet attract some people his Dad does attract. It is cosmetic, I believe, to a large extent, and Ron Paul followers are rallying behind Rand more and more. Rand's separate support was not entirely ON TOP OF what Ron draws, however.

If Ron dropped out though, RAND would get most of Ron's support, not Gary, a poster above is absolutely right about that.

 

[freshjiva]

This entire thread sucks.

Gary Johnson is incredibly similar ideologically to Ron Paul, and this thread is full of personal attacks. GJ is Chris Christie times 2.
We can't even support candidates that share 99% similar views.

If this continues, libertarian bus will never leave the station.
Unfortunately, we're no different from the two big parties. Too many short-sighted idiots who bicker amongst themselves. Set your sights on the prize, people. GJ is one of us.

 

[specsaregood]

Who?

Here ya go, this totally huge, completely non egotistical poster should help.

 

[Brett85]

Earmarks are unconstitutional. The Constitution doesn't give Congress the power to authorize pet projects within a state. That doesn't involve regulating commerce among the states. The fact that the executive branch earmarks as well doesn't mean that Congress should have the green light to do it. Both Congressional and executive earmarks should be abolished.

 

[specsaregood]

Earmarks are unconstitutional. The Constitution doesn't give Congress the power to authorize pet projects within a state.

It isn't the constitutional role of congress to create the budget and decide how it is to be spent?

 

[BamaFanNKy]

This entire thread sucks.

Gary Johnson is incredibly similar ideologically to Ron Paul, and this thread is full of personal attacks. GJ is Chris Christie times 2.
We can't even support candidates that share 99% similar views.

If this continues, libertarian bus will never leave the station.
Unfortunately, we're no different from the two big parties. Too many short-sighted idiots who bicker amongst themselves. Set your sights on the prize, people. GJ is one of us.

 

[eduardo89]

Earmarks are unconstitutional. The Constitution doesn't give Congress the power to authorize pet projects within a state. That doesn't involve regulating commerce among the states. The fact that the executive branch earmarks as well doesn't mean that Congress should have the green light to do it. Both Congressional and executive earmarks should be abolished.

Congress has the authority to determine where all the money it brings in is spent. It's the executive branch that has no Constitutional authority to earmark money.

 

[BamaFanNKy]

Here ya go, this totally huge, completely non egotistical poster should help.

Aren't all political posters:

 

[Brett85]

It isn't the constitutional role of congress to create the budget and decide how it is to be spent?

Yes, but it should only spend money on what's actually authorized in Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution. The Constitution doesn't authorize spending money on projects within a state.

 

[Matt Collins]

Here ya go, this totally huge, completely non egotistical poster should help.

I don't see this as egotistical at all, (and I'm one to know)!

The guy is getting his image out there, it's called marketing. There is nothing wrong with that, and in fact it's necessary to have any effect at all.

 

[eduardo89]

Aren't all political posters:

That poster isn't by Ron Paul or his campaign...

 

[Brett85]

Congress has the authority to determine where all the money it brings in is spent. It's the executive branch that has no Constitutional authority to earmark money.

So Congress can spend that money however they wish to? That means they can spend that money on a universal health care system?

 

[RonPaulFanInGA]

Give Gary Johnson some credit: he's being decisive and acting like he wants it. An official announcement, a website, taking donations, media reports, etc.

All the stuff we wish Ron Paul would do while Paul continues with the inexplicable delays.

 

[specsaregood]

So Congress can spend that money however they wish to? That means they can spend that money on a universal health care system?

Is adding an earmark actually spending money? I thought it was simply proposing it. Do not earmarks have to be voted upon to be added? Does not the budget itself have to be voted upon?

 

[BamaFanNKy]

That poster isn't by Ron Paul or his campaign...

Well, there are some with his image. It's not all worded posters.