Roll Call: Associate Confronted Rep. Ron Paul About Flights

[kylejack]

The idea that Ron Paul is stealing or misusing funds is insane. There is, as we all know, an easy explanation other than corruption. No way is Ron Paul corrupt. I'd bet my life on it.

Well I don't know. I don't know that we would consider this stealing from a libertarian standpoint to take a second payout from a PAC.

 

[evilfunnystuff]

Tell him he's fucking brain damaged if he thinks a guy who voluntarily does not take his $50k/year Congressional pension is somehow engaged in dirty dealing under the table for a few thousand extra bucks.

^^^This also mention:

He returns a portion of his Congresional budget every year.

When he ran his private medical practice he treated Medi-Care patients for free, because he did not want to take medicare money from the Govt, based on principal.

How he was offered a track scholarship the University of Pittsburgh, but by then Paul had hurt his knee playing football and knew his performance would never be the same. University officials told Paul they were willing to take a chance on him, but Paul insisted on turning down the scholarship. "He just didn't believe that was right," said one of Paul's four brothers, David Paul, who lives in Hudsonville, near Grand Rapids. "That took a great deal of integrity, which he still has today."


Then follow up with something like:

Are these the actions of a man who would try to scam a measly plane ticket cost, or do you think this could be misreported or an honest mistake.

If it was a hopeless troll/agitator I might even throw in a:

Now go eat a pizza.

 

[MaxPower]

They're claiming they already ruled out the latter. That was Benton's attempt at an explanation.

How've they done that? Exactly how thorough a set of travel records for Ron Paul do these muckrakers have, anyway?

Regardless, this whole thing is a farce. The guy refused Medicare payments in his medical practice, opts out of the congressional pension program which would give him several times as much money every year as the cost of all these plane ticket costs combined, and returns $100,000 from his congressional budget to the treasury annually. It would make absolutely no sense in this context for him to be looking to skim tiny sums of money on the side through travel arrangements, and if he were out there looking to squeeze extra profit where he could find it, he would have far more lucrative ways of doing so than accepting two reimbursements for the same plane ticket.

On the downside, I suspect there's a good chance this "discovery" will be repeated one-sidedly by every major news network next time Dr. Paul looks likely to win a primary or caucus.

 

[idiom]

The Campaign actually needs to sort this out. Actually investigate something and fix it. Figure out if there was an accounting loop or if someone needs to be reimbursed.

These "failure to manage" stories need to get stomped on.

The Narrative being created is not that he was defrauding his PAC, just like they were not painting him as racist with the newsletter. The narrative is that RP is an incompetent manager vs Romney who is magical manager.

Sure RP is trustworthy, but can he run a country? That is the story. These are not character attacks. They want it to be defended with 'oh he is a really nice guy, I'm sure it was just another management hiccup."

The campaign needs to investigate all these issues and show that it knows how to track down decades old records and straighten accounting out. That it can find out just who wrote which bit of which newsletter. These are basic management competencies.

Romney doesn't have dodgy records because he destroyed them all. Illegally. But he knows how to look after his paper trail.

When it comes down to Romney vs Paul this will be the attack and we need to fix it now.

 

[RPit]

Ya his office needs to look into it an do any reimbursements. It is essential.

I don't think this proves anything about being dishonest or corrupt. This is a very common problem. Most 'simple-minded' accountants have a 'to-do' list and they follow it blindly. So it is understandable, since its 'common' to be reimbursed from the Gov, and so you send any record of the flights to them. And its common to be reimbursed by PACs. Unless the staffer sits downs and finds out 'which flight is for which' or makes the distinction they are more likely to just look 'oh here's flight on the statement' send it to gov. And when they look at their accounts with the PACs they do the same thing.

Its just incompetence as far as I can see.

Any amount of money that he is 'compensated' for by the gov is not even close to what he returns in unused budget.

Like others have said though, this shows badly on 'management' (President's don't do this shit but still people care), so its important that the campaign clears this out.

 

[angelatc]

\
OR, Ron Paul just bought two tickets for the flights in question, because he was flying with his wife or a staffer or some such, and was reimbursed once for each ticket.

Speaking as a "simple minded" accountant, that's the most likely scenario, and it's not a very common problem. The reason is that those of us who've actually studied in the field know that expenses shouldn't be reimbursed without the original receipt, as opposed to a credit card bill or a photocopy of a receipt.

In fact, the IRS will only allow expenses if the original receipt is present.

 

[angelatc]

From the "Hit Air" piece:

For example, on March 24, 2003, Paul purchased a round-trip flight from Washington, D.C., to Houston for $651.50. Several weeks later, filings with the FEC show, the Committee to Re-Elect Ron Paul paid $651.50 for the Continental Airlines ticket. Congressional expenditure records show Paul also was reimbursed $651.50 by taxpayers for the same flight.

This does not prove that two tickets were not purchased.

 

[sylcfh]

Oooh, ear marks and flights total in the thousands.

$3 trillion war? Totally cool.