 Our analysis of Congress is that there are some 500 people there, at least 300 of them are akin to airport windsocks, and that is when you talk to them about a public policy issue, they have their hand up to see which way the wind is blowing, regardless of whether or not they're charmed by your arguments. Well, that means that leaves several hundred, maybe, who have some sort of philosophy. I don't know whether maybe it's a hundred real bad ones and a hundred that are better, but there are very few for whom I personally have a great deal of respect. Now there are some of them who I have more respect for, but there are some good people there for sure who are both good people and who both agree with me on many things, so I have a great deal of respect. But I should say that there is no member of Congress for whom I have greater respect than our final speaker this afternoon, Congressman Ron Paul. He is a representative from Texas, the 22nd district. He is a physician, got his medical degree from Duke University as a graduate of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania. He has been very active in the issue of gold and he serves now as a member of the Gold Commission and he wrote a book called Gold, Peace and Prosperity. The example of Dr. Paul's voting record can be attested to by the fact that in the first two years that the council has had a survey of Congress on some 60 bills, Congressman Paul has been far and away the outstanding member of Congress in our voting study. He has also received the top rating from the National Federation of Independent Businesses, Watchdog of the Treasury and he has also been named the taxpayer's best friend by the National Taxpayers Union. He heads a foundation, a nonprofit foundation called the Foundation for Racial Economics Education, which publishes a paper called the Freedom Report. We started out with Leonard Ligio talking about ideas that have consequences but ideas don't exist simply in the ether. They have to get somewhere into the public policy realm and we've asked Dr. Paul to talk this afternoon to us as a close to our convention about the politics of these radical ideas. Thank you, Richard. Thank you very much. Delighted to be with you this afternoon. I feel like there's not going to be a whole lot I can offer to a sophisticated audience like this who have heard of all the experts and explained to you the best way to solve our problems. But I do have a special perspective on this problem that we face by being a member of Congress and one who certainly joins the council in their desire for a competitive free economy. It was mentioned by Richard the awards that I've won, like voting most often for competition for the least amount of taxes and the least amount of spending, it was not too long ago in the last election that we had a corporation that we were soliciting support from and hoping at least to neutralize them so the money didn't go to the opposition. We sent word to them, we were seeking their support and the spokesman came back and said, well, yes, we sort of like what he's doing but he's not pro-business. And of course we found out a little bit more about what pro-business means and I'm sure you can guess. Pro-business doesn't necessarily mean an opportunity to compete and to earn a profit, produce a product and a service and withstand the tests of the free market. Pro-business means that you should help them a little bit and in this particular case they had come to me and asked me for an assistance in getting a grant, a contract and we weren't too receptive to it and this made them unhappy and therefore they were going to challenge me and have persistently and they certainly passed the word around that I'm not pro-business. Now I think most of you can understand that rather clearly what pro-business means and the problems we face in Washington as politicians who will advocate a free market position. Some days it's very discouraging, you think, well, you'll never get anywhere because the system is built in to benefiting only the special interests and the politicians know the system, all we have are bureaucrats and programs up here to deal with and there's not much chance that we can get our views and our ideas across. I think there's every bit of reason to be optimistic even though we have those down moments. There has been a tremendous change. I first went to Congress in 1976, I lost after that but it was an early start for me in 1976 and I would say compared to 76 till now there's quite a bit of difference about what's happening. Not necessarily in legislation but what's happening in the country and among groups like this and that's where the difference is. I was fortunate enough not too long ago to be invited to a group in Milwaukee, a free market group that I was very impressed by. Just the other night I was invited up to Newark, New Jersey and they said when the information came to me from the staff they said this Chamber of Commerce group wants to talk up in Newark and I stopped and I said Newark wants a Chamber of Commerce wants me to talk. Do they know who I am and they said oh yeah yeah they know, they want to talk about free enterprise and they believe in it and I said are you sure? So the conversation went back and forth and they said yes, they really believe in free enterprise and there's some good guys up there and they know exactly your voting record and they want you to come up and defend it and I said well I need some more credentials and finally I got some more information, seems like Richard might have even recommended them, I can't recall who all said but they said yes it's a good group, they know what they're doing and know what they're talking about and I thought well the real test will be this. I said well if they're really really serious and they did ask about talking about the gold standard also, I said see if they offered an honorarium, I said see if they'll agreed to the contract and pay me in gold and sure enough they came back and they said they'd pay me in gold so I thought well I guess for the first time I'll come north of the Mason Dixon and east of the Mississippi and I'll venture in and but it was a delight, I mean it was a good group, had a foundation associated with the group and I think it's very encouraging to know that this exists outside of Texas, you know I thought only Texas had the good guys. So but ideas are changing, the rhetoric's getting a little bit better in Washington, I still think we have a long way to go in Washington to correct the ills, I am a firm believer in the saying that ideas do have consequences but I take this into consideration in light of the fact that politics sometimes move and meander about for non-essential reasons it isn't so direct I think that most people still do vote for very very superficial reasons and this can almost be used to our benefit as well because in spite of my voting record which is rather definitely defined as far as not voting for subsidies even for my own district which becomes difficult to defend in a political campaign for instance we have three major projects in our district that would be considered federally necessary to to exist we need the federal government that is the port authority which needed more money the flooding areas that needed for a flood insurance and also the NASA project which is rather large for Houston and sometimes you can get away with a bad vote if they don't know about it but those three issues were used day in and day out against me in the campaign said Ron Paul doesn't even care about his own district he votes against us all the time and it's it's a principally a Democratic district so it isn't a partisan thing that was going on I'm not an 80% Republican district so I wasn't guaranteed an election regardless it's a principally a Democratic district so the conception or the perception of most everybody on the house floor when they're voting is that yes they got to see the which way the windsocks blowing in order to survive as a politician I think they're misconstruing things I think the American people are much more sophisticated and much more willing to to look at at issues in in in some sort of way because in in spite of that I was still able able to you know achieve a political victory that is not lose on the fact that I did not become the champion of the handout that people are willing to but in the same sense did all those people out there those 50 plus point oh one percent who elected me did they really understand my philosophy the free market did they understand all the ideas you know I don't think so I think that the ideas were important I think the ideas of interventionism has been important to move the country in a bad direction for a long time and that the ideas that I hold and the ideas that the people who support me hold and the ones who are ready to willing to work and send me money those ideas are critical to me and to the movement and the perception that the people hold is critical it will be a mixture though of something very very superficial my estimation about how people vote for candidates is not so much that they voted for me not so much that I was a champion of the free enterprise system but somebody who voted honestly and did my very best and that they could trust me and I think that perception probably was over balanced you know all the negative approach of saying well you know he isn't getting enough for us matter of fact it's sort of built it almost confirmed the fact that they could trust me because I was even willing you know to take a stand that might be conventionally construed as non-political so certainly ideas have have consequences they're critical to the ultimate destiny of the nation and yet on a day-in-day-out political battle I think you have to take this and weigh it there's a relative weight to it but the ultimate nature of the government in the country will depend on the ideas that groups like this develop and the ideas that you hold and the perceptions especially of those who contribute in working campaigns but when it comes down to pulling a lever it will be for quite a different ways and I think this is a way that you can bring the conflict together that politics never deal in real ideas versus the idea that everybody deals only in that people only deal in ideas because I think it's a combination of both in 76 I would say the perception of my views that I took were looked at in a much more negative way than they are looked at now the word libertarian is used quite frequently with the free market and it's a different meaning for some than for others but in general they will associate my views with a libertarian view or a free market view in 76 I would say there were very very few who have even heard the word understood or even asked about it and yet today they will kidnally come up to him and they said well what's the libertarian position on this and this means that they're they're becoming aware that there is something else that there is another viewpoint besides the competing forces and that are using government in a conservative way versus a liberal way and they see that there is another stand and over time I hope I can persist with gaining respectability for it in that that they respect the view they might not agree with it but I find that they're not ashamed of it because even though they might not be anxious to take those rare stands on the house floor that are dangerous politically but correct philosophically but if there happens to be a rating where there's only five or ten votes and they happen to do well on it more or less accidentally but my name is associated with it it seems like they would like to use that they would like to benefit say and go back march into their district where they may have been voting to liberal and go to their conservative friends say look see I have credentials now I voted with somebody who knows and understands and believes in the free market so so they do want to cling to somebody or some things with that are related to sound principles yesterday we had a pretty typical example of the conflict of those who would like to deal in ideas who would like to follow the general rhetoric of what's been happening in the last several months versus the old problem of the political interpretation of what they should do with a vote this was the agriculture bill I think it's interesting if I just tell you a little bit about what happened because it tells you about what's what happens generally in legislation the the vote came up we were ready for final passage the committee member who's usually managed in the bill standing at the desk and he was standing there and he's usually the one responsible for getting a recorded vote in the minority side usually asked for it because we're usually on the losing side of a particular vote this was a large appropriation but as it came up and everybody had hung around from the last amendment vote because they knew final passage would come up and they would be a recorded vote and all of a sudden the speaker looked and paused for a minute and fell a set down and it was passed and it was hardly by whisper and as multi-billion dollar budget was passed it was many billions of dollars over the I'm hauled back I don't know exactly how many dollars over but it was over the president's request and there's a question of whether the president might even veto the agriculture bill because it's higher than the budget resolution there was no recorded vote and the main reason was this there are a lot of conservative Republicans in the Midwest who believe that they cannot ever vote against an agriculture bill and get reelected if I can vote against NASA get reelected they ought to consider it you know but they they said we couldn't do it and they didn't want to of course if they voted for it or you for it then they would say well there you go you voted to break the budget so of course it would be better not to have a vote but then an unusual procedure after it was substituted with the Senate number which was essentially just a parliamentary maneuver then another member out of the farm district came and asked for a vote and they got a recorded vote at an unusual time so we did go back and had a recorded vote but there at that time the conservative Republican who has been the champion the leader of your cause to cut spending is moaning and groaning you know my god now I have to vote for this so there there is a lot of that that goes on they're not you know serious enough nor do they have a comprehension of what really needs to be done in the Congress which means that we should you know cut the budget the truth is is we're not cutting the budget the budget is very very high it's way above last year's budget and with the planned increases in the defense military foreign aid budget it's it's it's going it's it's out of control I imagine most people here know the name Han Senholz I was talking to Dr. Senholz yesterday and I think the announced in Bruce probably knows these figures better than I do the announced deficit for last year I believe I saw was at 55 billion somewhere in that range and yet he claims with his calculation of off-budget I need to run this down and check him out make sure he's given me the right figures but he claims that there's 141.5 billion dollar real debt increase you know for last year's budget when you take off all the off-budget so there's still there's still a lot of deficits going going on and that means they're still going to be a bit of pressure on the on the Federal Reserve now the one the one area that I work in the most was mentioned in the introduction that I'd like to talk about a little bit where where I think ideas do have consequences in that debate and talk has has developed into a popular movement and that is on the money issue in 74 I ran for the very first time and it was out of frustration over what happened in 1971 in the Republican administration with wage and price controls and the closing of the gold window and it was the money issue that I was most interested in and I was not elected that year but came up here in in 76 and it was mostly laughs about what was going on with the with the monetary system yet now there's a serious discussion going on we have a gold commission that's been established a lot of people will call up and say you know just tell me tell me just what what is the most optimistic thing you think can happen with the gold commission after you do all your report you know you're not in the majority you know they'll ask it in a very negative way they'll say well the most the best the best benefit has already come and that is it's a public discussion it's in the Wall Street Journal and Barron's and Time and and Newsweek you know all the conventional magazines ABC, CBS, McNear Lair and everybody's talking about it now not because all of a sudden they have become philosophic and believe that we ought to have a morally and constitutionally sound currency but out of desperation because we have such a lousy currency that is depreciating so quickly and that the bond market's being wiped out and they can't build houses so out of necessity they do have to look for new idea or different idea and different approach and it just happens that the gold commission was established and in place and the need came along the commission certainly has been the vehicle for the discussion the need has blended in and there is a very very serious discussion going on we will have our third meeting for the gold commission on on Monday so this is an event that moved much quicker than I ever dreamed I would have thought that it would be several more years before serious discussion would occur and I'm even now lean toward more pessimism and say you know there's still no chance that anything is going to happen you know it's going to be a long time but there are others who believe that you should have a gold back currency who are much more optimistic and think it could even occur within months I don't happen to believe that but I was surprised about the rapidity of the changes that have occurred since 76 and I am hopeful for that I do believe though that the idea put out by Hayek or at least popularized by Hayek I can't believe he he was the originator that is of competing market currencies and this is catching hold I mean can you imagine I mean the Chamber of Commerce is pretty soon going to be I'm going to be champion the Chamber of Commerce I mean they wrote about in the Wall Street Journal yesterday and talked about competing currencies so and looking back in the just another aside on who may be on our on our friends that in the debates in 1968 when when we took off the 25% cover the small bank association the the the small group of bankers were strongly disapproving the removal of the gold cover the ABA was for it but the smaller banks were for it for holding on to a gold currency and I still run into a lot of bankers and usually so often hard money people say well the bankers you know our inflation is well some of the big bankers are but there are a lot of bankers who believe in honesty and sound money and I think that we we're moving in the right direction and and quickly because somebody did take the time to write down an idea and something that I can hang my hat on and to and to use and in some way or another popularize it or get voted for for other reasons I might not be able to explain all those things well enough to all my constituents but if I can convince them I'm going to do my very best to give them something that we would call an honest currency and they trust me yes then the ideas will have a consequence when I go to Washington try to implement these ideas as long regardless of how I get there and this is some of the political mistakes made by some they believe that if you're a purist in thought and you're going to go to Washington be a purist therefore you have to put everything out on the table exactly as it would be and everybody understands every iota of anything you've ever said well that sounds good and your workers should understand everything you believe in but in a campaign that's not true in a campaign it's going to be votes coming for various reasons very very superficial reasons and in politics you take your votes how you get them you don't don't refuse a vote because somebody's voting for you because they misunderstood you and you say well I want I don't want your vote because I'm really not for that you know you you just live in the real world of politics but when we get there we have to do something which is most important this is often a debate is the idea world more important in the political world and I had somebody come up to me the other day and they try to discourage when they say it's time you drifted away from the world of ideas and got more involved in the world of politics get your political action committee going and start you know you raising money and getting certain members into the Congress which is a reasonable suggestion for somebody who does deal in politics but he was de-emphasizing said the ground work has been down we've done the work and everybody knows what the free market ideas are and we don't need to concentrate so much in the educational aspect well I don't think that's quite true I think we still have a lot more work but I don't say that education is the only thing and politics is nothing I've had some very good libertarian friends who say yes educate yourself take care of yourself help your neighbor and educate your neighbor but forget about the government the government's the enemy you can't change government you can't even participate in government but I don't buy that obviously I wouldn't be here I can do a little bit better staying in Texas I don't have to come up here and run around if I didn't believe that some formal government is necessary and good and that we can change it and feel very fortunate that we have a government and a system free enough where we can change it where we can get involved where we can go out and do something and I think that's so important but the ideas I think are critical and we have to work with them we have to continue with it it's what's so wonderful about it isn't a group like this some might be more inclined to working only with ideas and others only in politics and you know that's fine but I think it takes both I think the ideas have to be there and you have to have an ideological movement before the politician can do anything and I think that I'm we're all you know in a transition and I think I'm really in the middle at the beginning at in the middle of that transition that I can even see it where you know a hard line approach in 76 was scoffed at much more so than now but books like Bob has coming out they're gonna make great assistance that's the kind of stuff that needs to be done somebody needs to put one of those in the hands of every legislative assistant in Congress you know that would be a good project so they can refer to that should be a reference book when they're dealing with OSHA you know to come up and have something they can look at they can look at an alternative so that's critical it's critical in in making the ideas work in the legislative sense the two can't be separated as far as I'm concerned and I am happy to try to deal with both and is for this reason that I have pursued putting out a freedom report where I I considered quite modest but something that is attractive to a lot of people who might not have read it otherwise you know they aren't interested in reading economic textbooks but they might receive a short easily read piece or an article sent to to them from me and I have a large number of people in that list and I'm always trying to expand those numbers and I can get a lot of people to read that that wouldn't have read otherwise so this is the spread in the ideas but I couldn't come to Washington I mean it's hard enough as it is I think being at the early stages of a libertarian revolution but there is nothing if I'm standing by myself but because of the groups you know the groups in Wisconsin and Newark and Alaska and Texas all through the country that are growing now this will make the difference the only real question I have and I believe Hayek states this question to or doubt and is how much time does it take to make sure that the people will endorse those ideas and understand why we can abolish OSHA and EPA and come up with something else without destroy in the country will there be enough people to understand that you know if you did go to a sound currency possibly there's a little bit more adjustment period than some of us would like maybe there will be a bit of malinvestment and debt to be liquidated and will they be patient enough to wait six months or 10 months or a year and keep your hands off that's a big question and right now today I would say no they have no patience at all and that we stand on the verge of attempting to impose our ideas and yet at the same time we stand on the on the brink of a of a holocaust economically and socially because if the money doesn't work in the welfare checks won't buy anything the people who have been conditioned that they have a right to your wallet and they don't receive the purchasing power stolen from your efforts yes they're going to revolt and then there's going to be chaos and our attempt to change things will go down the drain that's why I think it's so important that in dealing with the ideas that we may have the ideal that we would like ideally there should be no post office and there should be private delivery of mail but that doesn't mean that I should draw up a law today and abolish the post office at eight o'clock tomorrow morning and that would be it even though I think that probably would work pretty well I think it would by the day after I think would be delivering mail again but as a suggestion that the people might accept a little easier is just legalize the right for you to deliver your first class mail and the transition would come and that's why I I think the idea of competing occur currencies is so good in something that is achievable I'm optimistic enough to think that we may get that a major part of that into the majority report they would never accept the idea that tomorrow we will quit monetizing debt and we will have a gold currency that's not going to happen but they see the the true anti-gold pro paper person is let's threaten by gold and say yeah if you kooky people want to hold gold coins go ahead and we'll mint coins and let you have them I think it'd be much difficult more difficult to get rid of the legal tender laws and get rid of the taxation on the buying and the selling of the gold but we're making inroads into this idea that we ought to have it stand on its merits the paper money versus the gold money so I am very very hopeful I think psychologically if nothing else even if we didn't start using the gold immediately psychologically if if the gold commission came out at March 31st and said the Treasury will now mint one-tenth one-half one-quarter an ounce gold ounce gold coins and to be sold to the American people and the liberal say oh that's great we're gonna miss up the South Africans you know and they'll say yeah that's good we'll sell them and let the people buy them and let them min them as often as possible you know I've always worried about a lot of people who aren't too convinced we have the gold at Fort Knox and I don't even know if we do but and they won't audit it so I thought here well let's sell it that'll be the best thought it ever we'll find out if it's there let the gold and I used to believe more strongly that the gold had to be in hand with the government because it had to be a government hundred percent gold coin standard and we couldn't do it on our own but I'm more convinced every day that the safest thing we can do is secure our liberties allow the marketplace to work and get the hands and the hands of the people get the golden hands of people it would work I mean we wouldn't have to worry about matter of fact even it would be a tragedy if the gold didn't exist in Fort Knox but even without it I think that with freedom and with the incentives that come along with a free market the market could handle it the gold would come to the country we would become productive and prices would adjust so it's a matter of convincing the people that they don't have anything to fear about freedom I think that takes a lot of understanding about the transition so that we can teach them to keep their hands off very often I can compare this to what happens when the and this doesn't happen quite so much as it did a few years ago but when penicillin first came out the physician was inundated with people coming in because penicillin was given so carelessly patient would come in would have a viral cold and I want to shot a pen doc you know and so well you know that the patient's pressuring the doctor the doctor's harassing doctors gonna make an extra ten bucks so he gives him a shot of penicillin doesn't do anything with the cold and it complicates things it makes his condition worse because penicillin is dangerous to those people who are allergic it makes a bacteria so that they're not susceptible to the penicillin so it has all kinds of potential complications if you give antibiotics carelessly that's the way it is in the economy you know if you keep your hands off things will solve the problems as well and it takes a good doctor who can say but you need to go home and take a rest and just let things be you know and we don't need to be interfering with you but today I'm afraid really what we face is the crisis soon if the unemployment rates jumps to 10 11 12% is the Federal Reserve gonna be say tight you know and are they gonna turn of money supply loose and what will happen to the unemployment benefits what will happen to all those programs our side is still too weak and that's why the efforts that have to be made in the educational field I think can't be under emphasized I don't feel secure that we have done all the work necessary educationally and we have to popularize them even though it is true that a movement only needs three or four percent of the people totally dedicated and understanding it you still have to have a consensus of the people not to fear what you're doing and be convinced that you're right and you have to be leading the way in a conventional sense with the media and the government and people getting up and standing up and leading so that people do not panic and that's what we need we need time I believe if we had a monetary and economic catastrophe tomorrow the next day or the next year the net result would be negative I think that we would lose more freedoms but I believe that if we had some more time the chances would be much better that the groundwork will be done in that we can impose change if we can get the people to understand that a price probably will have to be paid I haven't bought the argument that there will be no price to pay for the unwise spending of the 50 years and the unwise inflation if it were so easy to go from where we are and say that we can wave a magic wand and don't worry about deficits deficits don't matter and all this and say that we can go to a gold standard interest rates are going to come down everything's gonna be alright you know that's the best argument I've ever heard for 50 years of inflation and I'd do that I'd go for 50 years of inflation if we can switch our direction and there's no penalty pay now that's the tough part who's going to bring it on and say yes this is it and we must do it but I'm optimistic to think that we're in better shape than we were the movement certainly is growing for those who believe in individual liberty and that it has to be kept going but I believe it's that we're at a critical stage and I believe in the next few years you're going to see the results that's just hope and pray that we don't have a international or a national catastrophe that sets us back so to me it's most important that groups like the council for competitive economy are encouraged and and continue to be supported they need to help they are effective congressman by the way rich are very very much aware of ratings you get some respectability and they hear about this and they don't like to be rated low you know that's bad so keep it up do two or three a year or something keep after I'm telling they rate lousy and send it to their district or something you know but they don't like to be rated and if they if they're rated poorly so I think all these things are great and you should be encouraged and and thanked because I'm I'm convinced that groups like this National Taxpayers Union and and others are very very much of a help to me and someday soon we're going to get several more dozen over here that believe the same way thank you very much thank you congressman Paul our policy whenever possible is to not let people go away without having the chance to ask a few questions so if you don't mind we'll take a few if you've got it question yes sir ron ball and others who respect but the console for competitive economy stands for the government and we have language barriers because of the influx of many foreign elements into our country that don't know what the legitimate functions of government or free society really are and we must depend on those people that have platforms a lot so you can tell them or to come to an audience of people that this kind of association so that we can further down to the mentality of absorption for the electorate with one man one vote because that's what puts you in office and keeps you there and once you get off the way to the practice of medicine your life's work and get into another vocational activity of a forgotten country and then in order to sleep on a pillow step for the better to make their conscience not necessarily the politician for the statesman you don't want to evade the truth if you want to speak it which makes a difference between the politician and the statesman who'd rather die for cause than to sell their soul to the country's store and because he couldn't live with it and I think that this country has been based on my principles and I don't see why they like to view it any time or any one of your kind would have to do that now what are your potentials and what is your thinking this kind of political action to preserve a competitive economy because freedom follows a free market like life today and when the economy is free we can retain those nice things and you're thinking along in terms of what am I going to do outside the legislative realm and what can I all right well I don't know if I understand the question completely but I think that that is part of the part of the responsibility and the obligation I have is to continue to communicate with these people and anybody and everybody else that I can for them to understand you know what what the issue is all about and what the philosophy is all about but I think this is done differently by everybody no I don't oh well there are some Spanish speaking people but uh I don't speak Spanish I have enough trouble understanding this all in English you know we're going to a gold standard in other words if Reagan woke up tomorrow morning and was convinced that this was the only thing to do what what is the procedure there are different procedures I have one that is proposed in the form of legislation and it would essentially say that there would be no more monetization of debt the government would live within their means and the Federal Reserve note would be redeemed at a market value of gold set in one year and the government would get out of the business of monetizing debt completely and totally and their budget would be balanced and but there are various other forms and this is a difficult question I I don't know the the the very best because matter of fact today I was talking with Murray Rothbard on this very subject and he has some questions in his mind too and I respect him as being one of the brightest free market economists and his proposal is that that you set a price of gold very very high so that you don't have to worry about you know deflation a few times in the past they've set the price low like in England in the 20s and it didn't last so he suggests that it that it be set high by the government rather than the market and I think all these different considerations have to be considered but that should be what we're really debating you know in the gold commission rather than monetarism is what we drifted into the spouse free enterprise and I'll put the word free in quotes are also those who seek subsidies protection tariffs what have you wouldn't competitive enterprise really be a better term to use well I'd be I'd be very favorable to that term matter of fact it's rarely that I use the word free enterprise or laissez-faire laissez-faire connotes a lot of negativism and free enterprise sort of is a word that people get turned off with competitive enterprise tells you a little bit more I usually use them you know the word the market economy the free market but I think a competitive economy is exactly what we're looking for I've been an activist in politics since maybe 76 and the biggest kitchen coffee table debate is where is the constituency and this has been a constant subject of discussion my my my friends in the last five years in your opinion looking at the diversity of this group is as an example if you were going out to find the market for these ideas okay where do you think the most important places are to sell the ideas that what's the most fertile ground are you talking about uh in a political sense or in an educational sense in a political sense there's no answer because the number one reason why I think I'm in congress is that the majority of the people of the district trusted me so your constituency is every place and that I cared about a working man as much as I cared about a businessman's profit my rating went down in the nasa area which was real republican I still got 62 that's pretty good I could have gotten maybe 70 if I'd played played all their games but the labor district my vote went up not because I was a champion of labor unions but because they trusted me and they thought I cared about what was happening to their pocketbook with inflation you know they didn't understand the belt so the constituency is every place so I would never narrow it down and narrow somebody's targets down it's to be broad-based and and go after everybody and depends of course whether you're being you're approaching it as a democrat versus a republican versus libertarian you know it just depends so much on on the political approach in the group but you don't you don't decide well there's a free market people that we reject the bankers you know there's a lot of a lot of people in the banking business that believe in sound money you know and that you don't reject it and I think that's what I do sometimes I get careless and sometimes I get to the point where I figure well most businessmen uh aren't free market well that's wrong most businessmen aren't good free market people and all they want is a chance because the small businessmen the ones they give the bad uh reputation of the international people who are in trade and one tariffs and are can bid up the contracts but that's a small number of people I mean there are three big companies that needed to port dug deep and in consent political consensus of everybody was that was the key to all the votes in my hometown and yet my vote went up in that district and I I didn't raise a finger to do anything to get more federal money into the district so uh I think there's a misperception I think that the constituency is every place and you should address that but you have to recognize that that eventual vote isn't going to come because uh because I had this uh very definite viewpoint on liberty the last 30 years there's been in my view an unfortunate association of a free enterprise philosophy with uh militarism and foreign interventionism do you see this changing at all the uh changing away from the association of a of a of a of the so-called free market and militarism uh no I would say it's probably uh being enhanced uh in the last uh years um that again I think is uh information needs to be out we don't have any one major group uh we have a group maybe talking about a competitive economy and somebody talking about gold and somebody talking about taxes but how many groups uh uh non-tax foundations who are dedicated to uh uh working for a non uh interventionist foreign policy I would uh I don't know of of any uh educational group that way but uh I know one thing that if you want to talk about a good subject with average conservative republicans I can get them applauding every time about do you think it's time we ought to quit paying for the defense of Japan when they take the money and give it to their car companies you know they're sick of it they say oh is that right I said yeah you want me to spend you want to know why I don't spend vote for all those military budgets then they understand it they never get it offered so I would say there's a there is a source or there is a some a vacuum that could be filled by a group that would promote that because I think the American people are basically ready more so than ever yes after the war Europe was torn up we were wealthy give them a couple bucks you know just because we're eventually going to destroy the dollar they can't see all that but now the dollar's destroyed and they're broke they can't buy a house they can't buy a car and you know they want something done so they're they're ready for that and uh when you tell them that you know you're spending more money and you're getting less defense you're not even getting any defense price is getting a contract for tanks that don't work you know and uh it's getting worse and do you feel any more secure because you have tanks that don't work that you're going to send to Europe do you feel more secure because we're building bombs that the Germans won't let us put over there where they're supposed to be you know it's it's just a ridiculous struggle do you feel more secure because we're going to send three billion dollars worth of weapons to Pakistan so they can fight India why don't you want to give a waxes to Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia well because I don't want the f-15s that we gave to Israel to shoot them down you know it goes on and on so dr paul one theme that i've detected in your comment about your success in the last election the fact that people trust you i know that you've used the ethical perspective but on the free market arguing that it's not just efficient but it's morally correct and we are at the council for a competitive economy have stressed that in our work in congress because we know that when businessmen go to a congressman and say well we go along to get along and vote for us and pay you off how do you see your success as it relates to the use of the ethical argument by congressmen to argue that the free market is right regardless of whether it helps my district do you think congressmen can be persuaded to go that direction not very often unfortunately i don't think that means you should not keep pursuing it and maybe they will accept that as a legitimate argument but i've made this statement i hope someday this is going to be an incorrect statement but the weakest argument in a committee hearing is to use a moral or a constitutional argument i that doesn't carry much weight pragmatism is the only thing what's it going to do you know they'll have things like a housing bill coming up and there's an amendment proposed well the person proposing the amendment will then have a sheet of paper just like that that goes out and they'll have it broken down by the computer what it means to texas what it means to houston what it means to district 22 what it means that's you know that's the thing that carries the weight uh is that pragmatic argument under that circumstance now if uh if they want to vote a certain way and they know you have a moral argument they'll love it and they'll use it but they'll be hypocritical about it uh there are some of the worst anti-constitutional congressmen over there who love to recite to congress because they happen to be right say on the draft and they will you know champion that and i think that's that association that sometimes they desire to have with me when i happen to be in their corner but they don't really care about an overall concept of the constitution and really uh defend the constitution down the line but when it's beneficial to them they'll recite the constitution or a moral argument but i think it should be continued to be used and i think as there's a transition up here uh and we'll get new people and uh they'll be more reasonable i'm afraid our time has run out and thank you very much i enjoyed it thank you very much congressman paul your comments about uh penicillin case and uh bob's talking about the solving economic problems through the marketplace remind me that my philosophy in the economy a political economy through the council is the same as my father who has been a physician for 45 years and i asked him one time what his secret was and he said that very early in his career he learned that most people would get better if he didn't do something to kill him and i think that's it thank you all very much for coming we've had a very successful conference thank you