I don't think it's Ron Paul's job to "save" us, either. Even if he were elected, his main job would be like leading a severely agoraphobic person outdoors. The person is going to hate it. They are going to kick and scream and beg and cry and verbalize all of their worst fears. Imagine being out there for years like this, not acknowledging all the hysteria, but calmly addressing each fear while teaching the person to get their own food, to navigate from place to place, and so on. Though things that seem basic to most of us, to that terrified person each step will seem so new and frightening that they'll long to lock themselves back up again. After the years are done, they may do just that, but they will likely realize that they were outdoors for years and their worst fears were unfounded; they survived it. It might inspire them to go outside far more often.
Any President who wants to deviate from the now-normal way of speaking, thinking, and doing is going to have an incredibly tough road ahead. For starters, Dr. Paul would have a credibility problem. Perhaps you laugh at that, but it's true. He will be setting out to do what others have always said they would, but never did, and so his honest discussions with people about his agenda might fall on deaf or suspicious ears. Think of Obama saying he will go through the budgets with a scalpel and remove all the superfluous spending. Now think of Dr. Paul saying it. It sounds different because it is, but to the public it will be the same promise from a different person.
The trouble with any radical notion you can think of is that it would cause a panic. Cut the IRS? Well how will everything get funded? How will we survive?! PANIC!!! Programs cannot simply vanish. The people working those jobs would have it hardest, especially the low ones on the ladder. These are usually temps who are working contracts for the Government and aren't exactly wealthy to begin with. If welfare programs were cut at the same time, well, you can see how that would play out in the short term. While some of you salivate at the notion of a total collapse, I'm not sure you'd like it to happen on Dr. Paul's watch. That is just about the surest way to guarantee that the country shuts itself in and tries nothing new, and the reins of power are gathered once again by the same people we now hate.
So what's Dr. Paul's purpose? I think the very first step in going in the right direction is to stop. We can't simply reverse when we're going full-speed-ahead in the wrong direction. You slow, you stop, then you reverse course. Dr. No will earn his name from the highest seat, and while his vetoes can be overpowered by Congress he can stand by his rationale for why he said "no." Most of the time, his "no" will stand. That is a huge step.
The next step, to me, is to allow competition. I would do this before cutting every agency, because if private competitors arise then there will be employers for many of the Government workers. Some, of course, will need to find new lines of work (many of them lack the skills to really compete), but it will soften the blow and it will allow people some continuity in services. The example of the Post Office is brought up repeatedly as something which could be privatized. Well? Let it! Let companies run regular mail service if they'd like. Let people OPT OUT of regular mail service if they'd like. There are so many bullshit "challenges" put out there by every President. Let President Paul be the first to challenge people to put the Government out of business.
All the while, these things will reduce the amount of money being spent in Washington. Obviously, the wars must end. I wouldn't worry about numerous "unemployed military," either. They cost far less at home, and still train and work on their bases. As the competitive sector of the economy picks up, there will be all kinds of demand for disciplined young workers.
Ditch the DoE? As much as we'd all like public schools to vanish overnight, I doubt that will happen, either. The alternatives aren't yet established. His Presidency would be the time to plant the seeds for this... to encourage parents to form community schools for their children, or homeschool. Teachers might also be tempted by real private sector innovation, which could mean very good salaries without the unions and while teaching children who really want to learn (or "hazard pay" type increases for dealing with the troublesome ones). Imagine working to develop an online curriculum, or gathering resources for parents to use at home, or reviewing textbooks for accuracy and ease of use, versus going into a packed room of angst-ridden teens who'd rather be anywhere but in your classroom.
Encourage people to reclaim more gray space and make it green. You don't have to give people huge globs of money to do this. You simply don't take more money from them. If a community decides to make an area that used to just be a parking lot into a greenhouse and grow food there, don't swoop in and tax it as a business. If you're worried about "regulation" and "safety" of that food, ask yourself why you're not as worried about food you get at the store, or at a farm stand. It's not all checked. Not even most of it is checked. At least here, if you get sick, you can find the source right away. Encourage people to sponsor parks and forest land, and even lakes. We "adopt a road" all over the country, and many of them really are a little cleaner as long as the group involved patrols it on a regular basis.
The IRS needs to be taken down a bit at a time, too. The fat has to be trimmed right away, so that there are fewer layers to each and every thing. I used to work with Government agencies to bundle and mail out informational brochures and such, and it's astounding how something so simple can become so complicated. That needs to go away immediately. This, though, is an agency where Dr. Paul can win the people and secure our future, because once taxes are cut or gone, the next President is going to have a very hard time re-establishing the IRS monster to its current level. At most, they might re-establish the organization and a tax (perhaps with war as an excuse?) but in reality people who are used to $100,000/year, untaxed, will not stand for seeing that income suddenly cut in half by taxation at all angles. People take it now, because they never see that money. It becomes wishful thinking, like wondering what you'd do if you won the lottery. If you really had all of your income, and were setting it to use, you would not go quietly along with the idea of handing half of that income... half of that USE... to the Government.
So Ron Paul was never supposed to "save" us, but he could still do a great deal to show people that being outside without the Govenrment isn't as dangerous as they think it is.
