I know that a lot of Ron Paul's speeches sound great, and sound like common sense. But the reality is that trying to implement his image of America would be disastrous. Not only that, but it is completely unrealistic. It can't be done. The president is a powerful position, but the president only heads one branch of the government. It is congress that actually writes and passes laws. The president can only do so much to influence what congress passes.
Getting back to what I said about implementing his ideas. People complain and complain about the size of the federal budget. But you know what? Most of it is Social Security and Medicare, programs that we pay into when we are working, and take advantage of when we retire. Social Security is nothing more than a nation-wide retirement plan. You pay now, and when you retire, you get a monthly check. Who wants to go and tell their grandmother that they want to take away her monthly Social Security check that she depends on to pay her monthly bills? And how are we going to replace Medicare? If we take away Medicare, where are the elderly going to get medical insurance? They certainly need it. If we did not have Medicare, either the elderly would have to go without insurance, or working children would have to add their elderly parents to their own insurance, which would be hugely expensive.
The third biggest budget item is the military. Frankly, with operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, there isn't a whole lot we can do about the defense budget right now. But as those operations scale back, I think military spending needs to be scaled back as well.
The 4th big budget item is interest on the national debt. Not a whole lot we can do about that. We borrowed that money in the past, now we have to pay interest on it.
That leaves all other spending. And you know what? It only represents about 1/4 of the government budget. All other spending, roads, research, HUD, everything else only makes up 1/4 of the budget, but that 1/4 is all people ever talk and rant and scream about.
Here's a couple pie charts, they differ here and there, but you can get the general picture:
