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Rand’s Reforms: The Ricochet Survey
Here’s a protip for the approaching presidential campaign season: when the candidates take to the stump, always read the transcript rather than watching the speech. I adopted this technique during the 2008 presidential campaign, when it simply became too arduous to sit through 75 minutes of mass hysteria (and at least one audience member fainting) to get through 15 minutes worth of Barack Obama’s cotton candy remarks.
The transcripts are clarifying. You’re not distracted by the delivery or the audience dynamics. You’re essentially alone with the candidate and his thoughts. And, nine times out of ten, you’re going to be disappointed — because the vast majority of these guys don’t have much to say.
Now, I don’t especially blame them for this. Running for the presidency in the modern era often dictates hiding the ball (the 2008 Obama campaign is a textbook example of this). But it does make mining the transcripts an interesting exercise. You’ll often discover that dozens of paragraphs worth of rhetoric only yield two or three concrete proposals.
There was a little more meat than that to the speech Rand Paul gave in Louisville earlier today kicking off his presidential campaign—although not much. The speech was clearly focused a lot more on constructing Paul’s personal narrative than delivering a coherent policy manifesto. That said, there were several specific proposals embedded in the remarks. For your edification, I’ve included them below. Let us know what you think in the comments.
Balanced Budget Amendment
Congress will never balance the budget unless you force them to do so. Congress has an abysmal record with balancing anything. Our only recourse is to force Congress to balance the budget with a constitutional amendment.
Term Limits
I have been to Washington, and let me tell you, there is no monopoly on knowledge there.
I ran for office because we have too many career politicians. I believe it now more than ever.
We limit the President to two terms. It’s about time we limit the terms of Congress!
Reading Legislation
I want to reform Washington. I want common sense rules that will break the logjam in Congress.
That’s why I introduced a Read the Bills Act.
The bills are thousands of pages long. And no one reads them. They are often plopped on our desks only a few hours before a vote.
I’ve proposed something truly extraordinary — Let’s read the bills, every page!
The bills are 1,000 pages long and no one reads them. They are often plopped on our desk with only a few hours before a vote, so I propose something truly extraordinary. Let’s read the bills every day.
Economic Freedom Zones
Politically connected crones get taxpayer dollars by the hundreds of millions and poor families across America continue to suffer. I have a different vision, an ambitious vision, an ambitious vision, a vision that will offer opportunity to all Americans, especially those who have been left behind.
My plan includes economic freedom zones to allow impoverished areas like Detroit, West Louisville, Eastern Kentucky to prosper by leaving more money in the pockets of the people who live there.
Repatriation Tax and Infrastructure
I want to see millions of Americans back at work. In my vision for America, we’ll bring back manufacturing jobs that pay well. How? We’ll dramatically lower the tax on American companies that wish to bring their profits home.
More than $2 trillion in American profit currently sits overseas. In my vision for America, new highways and bridges will be built across the country, not by raising your taxes, but by lowering the tax to bring this American profit home.
School Choice (This is not a selective excerpt — this is all Senator Paul said on the matter)
Those of us who have enjoyed the American dream must break down the wall that separates us from the other America. I want all our children to have the same opportunities that I had. We need to stop limiting kids in poor neighborhoods to failing public schools and offer them school choice.
Iran Negotiations
We’ve brought Iran to the table through sanctions that I voted for. Now we must stay strong. That’s why I’ve cosponsored legislation that ensures that any deal between the U.S. and Iran must be approved by Congress.
Not — not only is that good policy, it’s the law.
It concerns me that the Iranians have a different interpretation of the agreement. They’re putting out statement that say completely the opposite of what we’re saying. It concerns me that we may attempt, or the president may attempt, to unilaterally and prematurely halt sanctions.
I will oppose any deal that does not end Iran’s nuclear ambitions and have strong verification measures.
And I will insist that the final version be brought before Congress.
Foreign Aid
It angers me to see mobs burning our flag and chanting “Death to America” in countries that receive millions of dollars in our foreign aid.
I say it must end. I say not one penny more to these haters of America.
Domestic Surveillance
To defend our country, we do need to gather intelligence on the enemy. But when the intelligence director is not punished for lying under oath, how are we to trust our government agencies?
Warrantless searches of Americans’ phones and computer records are un-American and a threat to our civil liberties.
I say that your phone records are yours. I say the phone records of law-abiding citizens are none of their damn business.
Is this where we light up the phones?
The president created this vast dragnet by executive order. And as president on day one, I will immediately end this unconstitutional surveillance.
In addition, Paul also closed the speech with passing references to envisioning “an America where criminal justice is applied equally and any law that disproportionately incarcerates people of color is repealed” and “an America with a restrained IRS that cannot target, cannot harass American citizens for their political or religious beliefs.”
How about it, Ricochet? What do you think? Quibbles? Critiques? Suggestions? Unbridled adulation?
Published in Politics
UGH.
I’d check my spam folder, sometimes it gets shunted into there.
But, nope, TDS goes out every day, rain or shine.
Yeah, I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Drug laws, obviously. They disproportionately impact damage minority communities.
And it’s not that white people don’t smoke weed too, they do (ask around), its that white people aren’t sent to prison for it nearly as often.
I’m unimpressed by the emphasis on the BBA, term limits, etc. These are tinkering with the process, not addressing the actual problem — and I’m not enthusiastic about the nature of the tinkering, either. Maybe you could design a BBA that could theoretically work, but in the real world where actual presidents operate, any amendment requires Democratic support. And any BBA Democrats would vote for would be a bad deal. The reading legislation line is a nice campaign talking point.
I am not clear on what he means by “economic freedom zones” and would want to read some good analysis on the repatriation tax idea.
I’m less interested in vague aspirational statements about school choice than about your approach to ESEA.
Honestly, if I trusted him on foreign policy I’d be fine with his Iran statement. I don’t.
I’m torn on the NSA stuff. I’m deeply troubled by the possibilities, but also by Paul’s breezy dismissal of his proposal’s potential implications for national security.
No unbridled adulation here.
Here’s what I want to know, and somebody reassure me, please. Like most of the rest, Rand Paul has only a very small chance of actually winning the nomination. Once in a while I see speculation that he’ll refuse to back the eventual nominee and run independently. That’s crazy, isn’t it? It would be an arrogant, quixotic, and destructive course designed to build up one’s personal following, not to benefit the country. Is there any real chance he actually does that?
Who is he supposed to be pandering to? The 2% of Republicans that are black? Or the 6% who are Hispanic?
Several comments suggest Rand Paul will appeal to young independents. I’m a 60-year old conservative – but he appeals to me on several issues: term limits & BBA, in particular.
Term Limits just make staffers (the endless constant in DC) the continuity that keeps the city working. That means that the staff end up running everything.
If you have not done so, PLEASE take the time to watch Yes, Minister! and Yes, Prime Minister! Absolutely essential for understanding just how little power politicians have, and why that truth is baked into the cake.
The reality is that both points are correct. There are plenty of opportunities for legislative mischief in longer legislation and plenty for administrative or judicial mischief in the shorter ones. Conservatives get a little too caught up sometimes in trying to find quick-fix lifehacks for this stuff. You simply can’t arrest these things procedurally, because in the end it all still comes down to the judgment of the person casting the vote. Want to reform the system? Elect better people. It’s way harder, but it’s the only thing that’s ultimately effective.
Thanks for the precis, Troy. Yeah, I always prefer the transcript to the video. Reading political speeches is a slog, but listening to them is torture.
For me, the content of Paul’s speech breaks down like this:
Worthwhile, appropriate, but plain vanilla: Curtailing warrantless domestic surveillance, ending foreign aid to enemy nations, and restraining the IRS. Yay Rand, what bold courage! Seriously, any Republican candidate who doesn’t hit these notes will be cut after the first day of band tryouts.
Two proposed Constitutional amendments: I’m skeptical of the BBA, but Congressional term limits would have a strongly positive effect on the behavior of legislators and I’m all for that. But what is Paul saying he’d do beyond speaking in favor of these amendments? Congress isn’t interested in a balanced budget and they’ll never limit their own terms, so how do we get these amendments before the states in the first place? Answer: we don’t and Rand doesn’t.
Dumb to the point of annoyance: Reading legislation? Go President Paul! You tell those Congressmen. Then they’ll read those bills. Economic freedom zones? Why is a hands-off libertarian, assumedly a federalist, proposing interference in municipal and state governance?
Pandering to the point of disqualification: Repealing unequally-applied laws. Stop it, Paul, you selfish little jerk. We’ve had enough of that crap.
My opinion of Rand Paul dropped three notches after reading your article, Troy. A candidate’s announcement speech may be assumed to advertise his core governing principles and goals, and provide the rationale for his candidacy. Judged solely by this speech, Rand Paul is not fit to serve and should not run. I see a sellout, a pandering loser who thinks we’re stupid. Well, we’re not – but I begin to think Paul is.
If “elect better people” is our only option then the American experiment is hopeless.
Young independents who feel The Man is giving black folks the shaft.
I actually don’t think that’s the biggest drawback to a BBA. It’s a little bit of a stolen base to vaguely invoke “the government,” as monetary policy is set by the Fed. The bigger issue is that balancing the budget does nothing about the size of the budget. Now, you can argue that forcing taxpayers to pay all our bills in real time will diminish the appetite for spending—and that may be true, to an extent.
But, that aside, I’d rather have much lower levels of federal spending with some deficits than much higher ones with a balanced budget. Repeat after me: the real rate of taxation is the rate of government spending. You’re paying all those bills sooner or later (and, if it’s later, with interest).
They aren’t exactly novel. We’ve been trying at it for awhile. There are some drawbacks (see Pethokoukis here), although I’m deeply sympathetic to the underlying goal. FWIW, it strikes me as intuitive that the smaller the opportunity zone (or whatever they’re calling it this week), the more you’re going to be rearranging wealth than growing it.
I would agree with this but also add that the federal government passes way, way too many laws whether long or short. Bills should be short because they should only be drafted to repeal one or more of the ridiculous laws and statutes we already have on the books. I am very leery of ANY bill which adds a new law.
How about anyone who realizes how much the Drug War had damaged minority communities? Or people who realize that men can’t be fathers from behind bars? Or people who realize the trap that petty law enforcement puts poor people in? Or how about people who believe in justice?
To be fair to Frozen Chosen, there’s no way to know that from the text of the speech. In fact, Rand explicitly says “any law that disproportionately incarcerates people of color.” If you know what he’s referring to (drug crimes), you can take the intended meaning, but if you don’t it’s hopeless. That’s sloppy draftsmanship on the part of Rand’s writers, not a fault on the listener’s part.
I don’t disagree.
But interest on the national debt takes up a larger and larger portion of the federal budget. At some point soon its going to surpass defense.
That’s really the problem that will wreck everything. The only solution is to pay down the national debt, and we can’t even begin to do that with half trillion dollar budget deficits each year.
You’re right. It, of course, requires a small amount of common sense and context to be applied.
I agree with Frank on this. And it goes beyond the fact that you’re throwing out the good with the bad.
Look to the experience of places that have legislative term limits. California has employed them for decades. The legislature there isn’t exactly teeming with Cincinnatuses (Cincinnati?). Instead, there’s constant jockeying for everyone to find his next seat and the process becomes captured by the lobbyists and the staffers — who have all the institutional knowledge and no term limits.
Again, deeply sympathetic to the intent. But the remedy is worse than the ailment.
I reject your premise re the drug war and incarceration rates. I just read an article (could’ve been here on Ricochet) that showed how people who are in prison for non-violent drug offenses make up a very small percentage of the prison population. The vast majority of folks in prison are there for violent crime or property offenses.
I guess you could argue that drug addiction lead those poor innocents to commit those violent crimes or property offenses but that would undercut your reasons for legalizing drugs, wouldn’t it?
I wonder how many people are in this same boat. Shall we run an experiment? Like this comment if you agree with Leigh’s diagnosis.
You of all people should understand the use of hyperbole to make a point, Fred. I knew Paul wasn’t talking about murder but I didn’t appreciate his sloppy pandering, nonetheless.
Yes, but the logic of a BBA wouldn’t eliminate that half-trillion dollars of spending. It would just mean that we’d have to pay for it today. What you really want is to cut the level of spending. All a BBA does is move up the due date on the bills.
Balanced Budget Amendment
I know Reagan ran pretty steep deficits because he built up the military, as did Bush Jr. Most, if not all, of the conflicts we’ve involved ourselves with amount to steep rises in the annual deficit, although in times past they were usually repaid (or at least discontinued). A BBA would require some sort of tax increase/spending cut/currency manipulation to strike even, the first two of which are pretty unpopular among the people. That would decrease the tendency to wage war except in cases of national fervor. Trouble would arise if the wars are actually important, regardless of the public outcry, would it not?
Term Limits
Despite this being a conservative idea, I’m not sure I agree with it. My dad always said that we already have term limits, and that they’re called elections. I imagine that if the Founders wanted term limits, they would have written them in. Seems like they wouldn’t have just overlooked them.
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How can you ensure that people will read legislation?
Right. For the most part, if Paul says something that obviously doesn’t make sense, it’s because he doesn’t mean what he’s saying, but he’s using thinly coded language to pump his base. In this instance, if he meant what he said then, to pick a random jurisdiction with clear statistics, Connecticut would have to legalize rape, assault, theft, serious assault, burglary, larceny, murder, etc..
As Fred says, obviously what he means is “we should legalize drugs”, because although there’s an adult part to the Paul campaign, it’s still a Paul campaign and if it wasn’t, at its heart, about drugs he wouldn’t have kids (and, to be fair, the young at heart) posting leaflets for him across the country. We were debating the other day on Ricochet what the most pressing issues are for the country, but libertarians don’t need that debate.
It’s worth internalizing this lesson, because Paul will say many more things that are obviously dumb unless you read them as not meaning what they say, but being a simple demand that we legalize weed and reduce charges on other drugs (I don’t think Paul’s up for crack and meth legalization; heck, using the above formula, meth can remain a supermax category, since white people do that.)
Pandering is
: to do or provide what someone wants or demands even though it is not proper, good, or reasonable
So how is this pandering?
I should amend my comments. It’s not just marijuana. There’s a thousand other petty things that local law enforcement ding minorities for disproportionately. Paul’s comments are something the conservatives used to be in favor of. They’ll fight it kicking and screaming, though, if it comes out of the mouth of someone who is nominally a libertarian.
Additionally: Would that he would say “We should legalize drugs.” Were he bold enough to do that, he might actually win.
James, go answer comment #1. That’s why I linked you to this.
Pandering also means telling your audience what they want to hear even when it’s not proper, good or reasonable. His sloppiness makes it so. He could’ve easily have said he wants to repeal drug laws which fall disproportionately on people of color. But that might’ve stirred the pot a little too much, eh?