Tonight I went to 'Countdown To The Caucuses With Ron Paul' held in the Great Hall of the Memorial Union. I figured this would be a good event for me to go to because I feel it is our right and duty to become knowledgeable about our presidential candidates. It was a good experience and something I will continue to do for years to come.
Ron Paul is a physician, congressman, and presidential candidate from Texas. He advocates for a dramatic reduction in the size of the government and a return to our constitutional principles. He is currently second in most major polls for the Republican nomination. I believe that he is bringing the right mindset to the table, even though some of his positions seem a little outlandish.
Being that he really wants to reduce the size of the government, he wants to slash the Federal Reserve and Departments of Education, Homeland Security, Health and Human services, among others. I don't think this is practical or even feasible. While I agree with the fact that we need to reduce the size(i.e. spending) of our government, this seems too drastic, at least for the time being. Paul is all for giving the states all rights that aren't explicitly given to the national government. I just don't think the state governments are ready for this undertaking. And wouldn't this increase state government size and spending, which would just take our national debt and parcel it out to individual states? I have no answers to this, so don't take my word for this.
While I applaud Paul for his mindset and thinking that our country needs a major overhaul, I don't think we need to go quite as far as he wants. Nor do I think any Congress would allow this, no matter who has the political majority. They wouldn't want to have to go back to their constituents and have to explain how the Federal Reserve was eliminated. But you know what, that's their job and they damn well need to start doing it.
