PERSONAL:
Age/Birthdate
Born August 20, 1935 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Paul
Born on August 20, 1935 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. http://www.biography.com/people/ron-paul-265881
Married/Single
Married to his high school sweetheart for 53 years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Paul
Children
He has five children; Rand (Currently a senator from Kentucky), Ronald, Lori, Robert, and Joyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Paul
Financial Status:
He puts his money where his views are. His portfolio is chock full of gold stocks. He also is bearish on the stock market. He holds two exchange traded funds that will go up in value if the stock market goes down, Rydex-Ursa Mutual Fund and Prudent Bear Mutual Fund.
This is from a recent filing date for members of Congress to turn in their personal financial disclosure reports. They are all here (http://clerk.house.gov/public_disc/financial-search.aspx)
Here's Ron Paul's portfolio (http://clerk.house.gov/public_disc/financial-pdfs/2011/8202687.pdf):
Agnico Eagle Mines; Allied Nevada Gold Corp.; Alumina Common; Anglo Gold Ashanti Ltd.
BrigusGold Corp. Com MPV (formerly Apollo Gold Corp); Barrick Gold Corp.; Claude Research Inc;
Coeur D'Alene Mines Corp.; Dundee Bancorp; First National Bank of Lake Jackson; Gold Corp Inc;
Hecla Mining Co.; El Dorado Gold Corp.; IAM Gold Corp.; Kinross; Lexam Explorations Inc.; Mag Silver Corp.; Metalline Mining Co.; Mutual Securities Inc.; Newmont Mining Corp.; Pan American Silver; Petrol Oil and Gas; Prudent Bear Mutual Fund; Rydex Dynamic Venture; Rydex-Ursa Mutual Fund;
Silver Wheaton Corp; Texas Dow Employees Credit Union; Texas Gulf Bank; Virginia Mines Inc.;
Vista Gold Corp.; Viterra Inc; Wesdome Gold Mines Ltd.
(Note: Bank and Credit Union positions listed could be cash accounts held by Dr. Paul at the banks)
Dr. Paul has held many of these positions for many years, so his portfolio has done very nicely for him. Most people know how the price of gold has increased over the last few years.
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2011/06/ron-pauls-stock-portfolio.html
Ron Paul currently makes $174,000 as a congressman, according to About.com. He doesn’t accept the highly lucrative congressional pension plan so he will have to rely on his savings when he retires. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_pension
Health
Ron Paul recently issued this challenge to his competitors.
"I've offered to ride a bicycle for 20 miles in Houston, the temp is 100 and the humidity is one hundred, and I will go 20 miles with them and we'll find out who is the youngest”. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rBft0EgbZTQ#!
There doesn’t seem to be any record of any illness past or present for Ron Paul.
Religion
Here is Ron Paul’s statement of faith.
“I have accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Savior, and I endeavor every day to follow Him in all I do and in every position I advocate.” My faith is a deeply private issue to me, and I don’t speak on it in great detail during my speeches because I want to avoid any appearance of exploiting it for political gain. Let me be very clear here: I have accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Savior, and I endeavor every day to follow Him in all I do and in every position I advocate. It is God Who gave us life. As He is free, so are those He created in His image. Our rights to life and liberty are inalienable. www.ronpaul2012.com
Military Service
Ron Paul proudly served as a flight surgeon in the U.S. Air Force and in the Air National Guard during the 1960s. www.ronpaul2012.com
Core Values (Far Right/Conservative/Moderate)
Ron Paul is a Constitutional Republican. Congressman Ron Paul of Texas enjoys a national reputation as the premier advocate for liberty in politics today. Dr. Paul is the leading spokesman in Washington for limited constitutional government, low taxes, free markets, and a return to sound monetary policies based on commodity-backed currency. He is known among both his colleagues in Congress and his constituents for his consistent constitutional voting record in the House of Representatives: Dr. Paul never votes for legislation unless the proposed measure is expressly authorized by the Constitution. www.ronpaul2012.com
EDUCATION:
He graduated from Gettysburg College and the Duke University School of Medicine. www.ronpaul2012.com
CAREERS:
He and his wife Carol moved to Texas in 1968, where he began his medical practice in Brazoria County. As a specialist in obstetrics/gynecology, Dr. Paul has delivered more than 4,000 babies! www.ronpaul2012.com He was a partner in Camino Coins in Burlingame, CA. Before the US House of Representatives, April 2, 2009 http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul517.html
12 Term Congressman January 3rd, 1997 He ran on the same Constitutional/smaller government platform and gained more support almost every year he has run.
GLOBAL AFFAIRS EXPOSURE:
Paul currently serves on the House International Relations Committee and its subcommittees on the Western Hemisphere and Asia/Pacific. He is the author of "A Foreign Policy of Freedom."
http://usforeignpolicy.about.com/gi/o.htm?zi=1/XJ&zTi=1&sdn=usforeignpolicy&cdn=newsissues&tm=29&f=10&tt=11&bt=0&bts=0&st=10&zu=http%3A//www.internationalrelations.house.gov/
He was the only Republican member of Congress running for president who did not vote to authorize the Iraq war in 2002. He remains critical of U.S. involvement in the region and says the war “was sold to us with false information.”
He consistently opposes legislation supporting America's role in international agreements and organizations including the North American Free Trade Agreement, the International Criminal Court, the World Trade Organization, the United Nations, and more. His Web site says, "We must withdraw from any organizations and trade deals that infringe upon the freedom and independence of the United States of America."
http://usforeignpolicy.about.com/od/2008presidentialrace/p/RPaul.htm
POLITICAL ISSUES STANCE:
Jobs Plans
RON PAUL: “Government destroys jobs; the market creates jobs. So the government isn't going to be expected to create the jobs; they have to change the environment. But you can't do that unless you understand where the depression, recessions come from, and you can't understand that unless you know where the bubbles come from. I've been arguing this case for 20 years and warning about bubbles and housing bubbles and NASDAQ bubbles. And a lot of other economists have been doing the same thing. Until we understand that, you can't solve the problem. You have to deal with the Federal Reserve System. You have to deal with free markets. And you have to deal with the tax program and the regulatory system. Then you can get your jobs, because the people will create the jobs, not the government.”
“everything we've done in the last 20 or 30 years we've exported our jobs. And when you have a reserve currency of the world and you abuse it, you export money. That becomes the main export so [jobs] go with the money. The way you get capital into a country, you have to have a strong currency. Today it's a deliberate job of the Federal Reserve to weaken the currency. We should invite capital back. We have at least a trillion dollars of US money made overseas, but it stays over there because if you bring it home, you get taxed. We need to get the Fed to quit printing the money and we have to entice those individuals to repatriate their money, deregulate and de-tax to invite people to go back to work again.” “As long as we run a program of deliberately weakening our currency, our jobs will go overseas, and that is what's happened for a good many years, especially in the last decade.” “Minimum wage laws & mandating union contracts (closed shop) are designed to help a small segment of workers gain economic advantage while actually hurting unprotected workers. Long term, even the beneficiaries suffer from the unemployment that excessive wage demands bring about. High wages are great, but if there are no jobs they become meaningless. In a free society with free markets, workers should always negotiate for the highest wage, while businesses should always strive for maximum profits. And if left to the market, the consumer will decide which businesses thrive, and wages must go up, not because of coercive legislation but because under the circumstances there would be competition by businesses to seek out the best workers and reward them with the best wages. Coerced union wages and dictated minimum wages grossly distort the market process and contribute to the malinvestment initiated by the Federal Reserve policy and guarantee that in the correction, wages must come down.” http://www.issues2000.org/2012/Ron_Paul_Jobs.htm
Balanced Budget
Cuts $1 trillion in spending during the first year of Ron Paul’s presidency, eliminating five cabinet departments (Energy, HUD, Commerce, Interior, and Education), abolishing the Transportation Security Administration and returning responsibility for security to private property owners, abolishing corporate subsidies, stopping foreign aid, ending foreign wars, and returning most other spending to 2006 levels. Makes a 10% reduction in the federal workforce, slashes Congressional pay and perks, and curbs excessive federal travel. To stand with the American People, President Paul will take a salary of $39,336, approximately equal to the median personal income of the American worker.
Ron Paul promises to veto any unbalanced budget that is sent by congress.
www.ronpaul2012.com
Deficit Plan – Lower Debt Ceiling
Ron Paul will cut 1 trillion dollars in spending in the first year.
He will fight to fully audit (and then end) the Federal Reserve System, which has enabled the over 95% reduction of what our dollar can buy and continues to create money out of thin air to finance future debt.
Reduce Size of Government
Ron Paul will eliminate five cabinet departments (Energy, HUD, Commerce, Interior, and Education), abolishing the Transportation Security Administration and returning responsibility for security to private property owners. He will make a 10% reduction in the federal workforce and repeal Obama Care, Dodd-Frank, and Sarbanes-Oxley which require huge bureaucracies.
Eliminate ObamaCare
The answer to our nation’s health care crisis lies in freedom – not force.
As President, Ron Paul will fight to put you back in control of your health care decisions, save you money on medical expenses, and institute reforms that will once again make America’s health care system the standard for other nations to follow.
He will work with Congress to:
-Repeal Obama Care and end its unconstitutional mandate that all Americans must carry only government-approved health insurance or answer to the IRS.
-Allow purchase of health insurance across state lines.
-Provide tax credits and deductions for all medical expenses.
-Exempt those with terminal illnesses from the employee portion of payroll taxes while they are suffering from such illnesses or are incurring significant medical costs associated with their conditions.
-Give a payroll deduction to any worker who is the primary caregiver for a spouse, parent, or child with a terminal illness.
-Ensure that those harmed during medical treatment receive fair compensation while reducing the burden of costly malpractice litigation on the health care system by providing a tax credit for “negative outcomes” insurance purchased before medical treatment.
www.ronpaul2012.com
-Guarantee that what is taken from taxpayers to pay for Medicare and Medicaid is not raided for other purposes.
- Make all Americans eligible for Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) and remove government-imposed barriers to obtaining HSAs.
-Stop the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) from interfering with Americans’ knowledge of and access to dietary supplements and alternative treatments.
-Prevent federal bureaucrats from tracking every citizen’s medical history from cradle to grave by prohibiting the use of taxpayer funds for a national database of personal health information.
Ron Paul proudly worked every day to honor the trust his patients placed in him, and he will do the same as President with the confidence of the American people, who deserve a government that “does no harm” to their health care.
Agenda 21
Ron Paul wants out of the UN. He doesn’t want the IMF or the World Bank running our economy and running an international welfare state. We give up too much sovereignty to be part of it. They say that the ideas of agenda 21 are included in a treaty, but a treaty cannot amend the Constitution.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGhGn9E7Vso
It’s not mentioned by name anywhere in his 11 page Plan to Restore America;but, the cabinet-level departments he’s abolishing (page 2 on his plan) are the same departments (Energy, HUD, Commerce, Interior & Education) that Bill Clinton appointed to his President’s Council on Sustainable Development in 1993 to co-ordinate with the UN’s Agenda 21.
The Ron Paul Plan also includes a 30% reduction in EPA funding, cutting taxes, foreign aid and many other agency programs and bringing home the troops! It specifically eliminates participation in international conferences.
http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/2011/10/18/the-2012-dilemna-the-elephant-in-the-room-is-agenda-21/
One World Government
Ron Paul, “I don’t believe in world government and I don’t believe that presidents should do anything without the proper procedure of going to the congress and getting authority for doing what he thinks he should do. Sarah Palin, “you gotta hand it to Ron Paul, whether you agree with everything that he says or not, at least he is one there in congress trying to make our president stick to the law and understand that congress does have a role to play in these foreign policy decisions that are made and Ron Paul has hit the nail on the head when he’s come out and said that Obama had better be careful when he interjects himself and our country in other nation’s business.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=cuAHzxaUH20#!
Immigration
If elected President, Ron Paul will work to implement the following common sense reforms:
-Enforce Border Security – America should be guarding her own borders and enforcing her own laws instead of policing the world and implementing UN mandates.
-No Amnesty - The Obama Administration’s endorsement of so-called “Comprehensive Immigration Reform,” granting amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants, will only encourage more law-breaking.
-Abolish the Welfare State – Taxpayers cannot continue to pay the high costs to sustain this powerful incentive for illegal immigration. As Milton Friedman famously said, you can’t have open borders and a welfare state.
-End Birthright Citizenship – As long as illegal immigrants know their children born here will be granted U.S. citizenship, we’ll never be able to control our immigration problem.
-Protect Lawful Immigrants – As President, Ron Paul will encourage legal immigration by streamlining the entry process without rewarding lawbreakers.
www.ronpaul2012.com
Abortion
As an OB/GYN who delivered over 4,000 babies, Ron Paul knows firsthand how precious, fragile, and in need of protection life is. Dr. Paul’s experience in science and medicine only reinforced his belief that life begins at conception, and he believes it would be inconsistent for him to champion personal liberty and a free society if he didn’t also advocate respecting the God-given right to life—for those born and unborn.
After being forced to witness an abortion being performed during his time in medical school, he knew from that moment on that his practice would focus on protecting life. And during his years in medicine, never once did he find an abortion necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman.
As a physician, Ron Paul consistently put his beliefs into practice and saved lives by helping women seek options other than abortion, including adoption. And as President, Ron Paul will continue to fight for the same pro-life solutions he has upheld in Congress, including:
-Immediately saving lives by effectively repealing Roe v. Wade and preventing activist judges from interfering with state decisions on life by removing abortion from federal court jurisdiction through legislation modeled after his “We the People Act.”
-Defining life as beginning at conception by passing a “Sanctity of Life Act.”
Because he agrees with Thomas Jefferson that it is “sinful and tyrannical” to “compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors,” Ron Paul will also protect the American people’s freedom of conscience by working to prohibit taxpayer funds from being used for abortions, Planned Parenthood, or any other so-called “family planning” program.
The strength of love for liberty in our society can be judged by how we treat the most innocent among us. It’s time to elect a President with the courage and conviction to stand up for every American’s right to life. www.ronpaul2012.com
PLATFORM:
1. Cut $1 trillion in spending during the first year.
http://www.ronpaul2012.com/the-issues/ron-paul-plan-to-restore-america/
2. Balance the budget by the third year
http://www.ronpaul2012.com/the-issues/ron-paul-plan-to-restore-america/
3. Eliminate five cabinet departments (Energy, HUD, Commerce, Interior, and Education)
4. He will work with Congress to Repeal Obama Care and end its unconstitutional mandate that all Americans must carry only government-approved health insurance or answer to the IRS.
5. He will work to immediately save lives by effectively repealing Roe v. Wade and preventing activist judges from interfering with state decisions on life by removing abortion from federal court jurisdiction through legislation modeled after his “We the People Act.”
6. Make securing our borders the top national security priority.
7. Avoid long and expensive land wars that bankrupt our country by using constitutional means to capture or kill terrorist leaders who helped attack the U.S. and continue to plot further attacks.
8. Guarantee our intelligence community’s efforts are directed toward legitimate threats and not spying on innocent Americans through unconstitutional power grabs like the Patriot Act.
9. Follow the Constitution by asking Congress to declare war before one is waged.
10. Only send our military into conflict with a clear mission and all the tools they need to complete the job – and then bring them home.
11. Ensure our veterans receive the care, benefits, and honors they have earned when they return.
12. Revitalize the military for the 21st century by eliminating waste in a trillion-dollar military budget.
13. Stop taking money from the middle class and the poor to give to rich dictators through foreign aid.
14. He will lead the fight to remove restrictions on drilling, so companies can tap into the vast amount of oil we have here at home, repeal the federal tax on gasoline, and lift government roadblocks to the use of coal and nuclear power.
15. Many other positions in Ron Paul’s platform were mentioned above.
VOTING HISTORY:
Voted:
Against increasing the debt limit
Against the Stimulus
Against the most recent insanely bloated budget
Against the Tarp bailouts of both parties
Against Obama Care
Against the Iraq War
Against the Patriot Act
Against the war in Libya
For hunting down Osama Bin Laden
Against the war in Afghanistan
Against regulation of the internet
Against Cap and Trade
Against foreign welfare
Against regulation of firearms
Against funding of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
Against the Real ID Act
Against FISA
For repealing portions of the D.C. Firearm Ban
Against the Dream ACT
Against additional power to the FAA
For abolishing federal financing of presidential election campaigns
For a bill that increases regulations on members of Congress regarding lobbyists and donations.
Against violating the War Powers resolution
For the secure fence act of 2006
Against lending federal dollars to financial institutes
For the Border Security Bill
Against the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act
For prohibiting congressional cost-of-living pay increase
Against a bill that authorizes $48 billion to the Global Fund for assistance to certain countries for combating HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis for the five-year period of 2009 through 2013.
Against Hate crimes expansion
Against assistance for Mexico and Central America for Anti-Drug programs
For a bill that prohibits the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions to address climate change.
Against national volunteer program expansion
For offshore drilling
Against additional appropriations for food stamps
Against cash for clunkers
Against trade agreements
Against additional FDA authority over our food
For the Immigration Law Enforcement Act of 2006
Against the extension of unemployment benefits
For removing troops from Afghanistan
For prohibiting the use of federal funds for Planned Parenthood
For establishment of the Office of Congressional Ethics
For prohibiting partial-birth/late term abortions
Against any federal funding of abortion
For prohibiting federal funding of national public radio
Against CAFTA
For reducing federal funding of the US Institute of Peace
Against Housing Foreclosure Assistance Programs
Against agricultural subsidies
Against all unconstitutional appropriations (a majority of all the appropriations from what I looked at)
Against federal land grabs
Against the National Endowment for the Arts Amendment
Against additional authority to the FDIC
For prohibiting the use of federal funds for NASCAR sponsorships
Against appropriations to unconstitutional departments of the federal
government
Sponsored HR1207 the Audit the Fed Bill
http://tulsachange.com/ron-pauls-voting-record-what-does-he-stand-for
Sometimes you have to read the actual bill before you make assumptions. For example, Ron Paul voted against a bill limiting the use of funds in support of NATO Operations in Libya. Why wouldn’t any American want to limit the expenditure of their money to NATO? This bill “masquerades as a limitation of funds for the president's war on Libya but is in fact an authorization for that very war. According to HR 2278, the US military cannot be involved in NATO's actions in Libya, with four important exceptions. If this passes, for the first time the president would be authorized to use US Armed Forces to engage in search and rescue; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; aerial refueling; and operational planning against Libya. Currently, absent an authorization or declaration of war, these activities are illegal. So instead of ending the war against Libya, this bill would legalize nearly everything the president is currently doing there.” http://paul.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1882&Itemid=60
