Another One Enters the Race

I could say another clown has jumped into the Republican presidential clown car but that would be just too easy. Oh wait I just did do that didn't I. Shame on me.

I could go on in the same vein but I’ll try and take the high road on this one. It will be hard but I will try.

There is a long litany of reasons not to support this guy. But this to me is if not the main reason one of the top five reasons. Here it is:

Paul fleshed out pillars of his emerging, eclectic platform: amending the Constitution to require a balanced federal budget.

I’m sorry that is just completely and totally ridiculous. The notion that a constitutional amendment for a balance budget will be the end all and be all of solving the problems with deficits is absurd. There will be times when the government will need to have deficit spending. Plain and simple.

Paul also talked about reducing the size of government. I think I’ve heard this one from politicians all of my adult life. The notion that there will be a radical reduction in the size of the federal government is simply not realistic. As the old saying goes one man’s pork is another man’s bacon. All these people who clamor for a reduction in the size of government are the first one’s to run to it when they need something.

What needs to be talked about in campaigns is how to make government work more efficiently. Are programs working the way they should? Is it possible that some of them might be able to be done away with? But the notion from these people is that whole departments will disappear. That many of these functions will be transferred to the states like food stamps for example. I’m not sure that is a very good idea. And just because something is moved to the local level does not mean it will work any better.

I will say I liked one the things Paul said:

Conservatives should not succumb . . . to the notion that a government inept at home will somehow succeed in building nations abroad.

Words that will fall on deaf ears of most of the Republican candidates (and it looks like there will be a boat load of them) running for president.

But that’s about it. His libertarian notions of what government should and shouldn’t be in are scary. He talks about how the poor need to be helped while at the same time cutting many of the programs that help them.

In the end there is really not much new or different in Paul's candidacy at all. It's same ole Republican tripe in a new package and that's all