Congressman Ron Paul is the leading advocate for freedom in our nation’s capital. As a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Dr. Paul tirelessly works for limited constitutional government, low taxes, free markets, and a return to sound monetary policies. He is known among his congressional colleagues and his constituents for his consistent voting record. Dr. Paul never votes for legislation unless the proposed measure is expressly authorized by the Constitution.In the words of former Treasury Secretary William Simon, Dr. Paul is the “one exception to the Gang of 535” on Capitol Hill.

Ron Paul was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Gettysburg College and the Duke University School of Medicine, before proudly serving as a flight surgeon in the U.S. Air Force during the 1960s. 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. He and Carol, who reside in Lake Jackson, Texas, are the proud parents of five children and have 17 grandchildren.

While serving in Congress during the late 1970s and early 1980s, Dr. Paul’s limited-government ideals were not popular in Washington. In 1976, he was one of only four Republican congressmen to endorse Ronald Reagan for president.

During that time, Congressman Paul served on the House Banking committee, where he was a strong advocate for sound monetary policy and an outspoken critic of the Federal Reserve’s inflationary measures. He was an unwavering advocate of pro-life and pro-family values. Dr. Paul consistently voted to lower or abolish federal taxes, spending and regulation, and used his House seat to actively promote the return of government to its proper constitutional levels. In 1984, he voluntarily relinquished his House seat and returned to his medical practice.

Dr. Paul returned to Congress in 1997 to represent the 14th congressional district of Texas. He presently serves on the House Committee on Financial Services and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. He continues to advocate a dramatic reduction in the size of the federal government and a return to constitutional principles.

Congressman Paul’s consistent voting record prompted one of his congressional colleagues to say, “Ron Paul personifies the Founding Fathers’ ideal of the citizen-statesman. He makes it clear that his principles will never be compromised, and they never are.” Another colleague observed, “There are few people in public life who, through thick and thin, rain or shine, stick to their principles. Ron Paul is one of those few.”

Congressman Paul introduces numerous pieces of substantive legislation each year, probably more than any single member of Congress.

• He has never voted to raise taxes.


• He has never voted for an unbalanced budget.


• He has never voted for a federal restriction on gun ownership.


• He has never voted to raise congressional pay.


• He has never taken a government-paid junket.


• He has never voted to increase the power of the executive branch.



• He voted against the Patriot Act.


• He voted against regulating the Internet.


• He voted against the Iraq war.



• He does not participate in the lucrative congressional pension program.


• He returns a portion of his annual congressional office budget to the U.S. treasury every year.

My friend Chris Rhoades at the Iowa Straw Poll!

"Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations – entangling alliances with none"
—Thomas Jefferson, 1821

"But America goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own."
—John Quincy Adams, 1821

"It is our true policy to steer clear of entangling alliances with any portion of the foreign world."
—George Washington, 1796

The Original American Foreign Policy
by Rep. Ron Paul

I have written before about the critical need for Congress to reassert its authority over foreign policy, and for the American people to recognize that the Constitution makes no distinction between domestic and foreign matters. Policy is policy, and it must be made by the legislature and not the executive.

But what policy is best? How should we deal with the rest of the world in a way that best advances proper national interests, while not threatening our freedoms at home?

I believe our founding fathers had it right when they argued for peace and commerce between nations, and against entangling political and military alliances. In other words, noninterventionism.

Noninterventionism is not isolationism. Nonintervention simply means America does not interfere militarily, financially, or covertly in the internal affairs of other nations. It does not mean that we isolate ourselves; on the contrary, our founders advocated open trade, travel, communication, and diplomacy with other nations.

Thomas Jefferson summed up the noninterventionist foreign policy position perfectly in his 1801 inaugural address: "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations — entangling alliances with none." Washington similarly urged that we must, "Act for ourselves and not for others," by forming an "American character wholly free of foreign attachments."

Yet how many times have we all heard these wise words without taking them to heart? How many claim to admire Jefferson and Washington, but conveniently ignore both when it comes to American foreign policy? Since so many apparently now believe Washington and Jefferson were wrong on the critical matter of foreign policy, they should at least have the intellectual honesty to admit it.

Of course we frequently hear the offensive cliché that, "times have changed," and thus we cannot follow quaint admonitions from the 1700s. The obvious question, then, is what other principles from our founding era should we discard for convenience? Should we give up the First amendment because times have changed and free speech causes too much offense in our modern society? Should we give up the Second amendment, and trust that today's government is benign and not to be feared by its citizens? How about the rest of the Bill of Rights?

It's hypocritical and childish to dismiss certain founding principles simply because a convenient rationale is needed to justify interventionist policies today. The principles enshrined in the Constitution do not change. If anything, today's more complex world cries out for the moral clarity provided by a noninterventionist foreign policy.

It is time for Americans to rethink the interventionist foreign policy that is accepted without question in Washington. It is time to understand the obvious harm that results from our being dragged time and time again into intractable and endless Middle East conflicts, whether in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, or Palestine. It is definitely time to ask ourselves whether further American lives and tax dollars
should be lost trying to remake the Middle East in our image.

"...a wise and frugal Government..."
—Thomas Jefferson, 1801

"Ours was intended to be a plain and frugal government, and I shall regard it to be my duty to recommend to Congress and, as far as the Executive is concerned, to enforce by all the means within my power the strictest economy in the expenditure of the public money which may be compatible with the public interests."
—James K. Polk, 1845

"It is beyond all question the true principle that no more revenue ought to be collected from the people than the amount necessary to defray the expenses of a wise, economical, and efficient administration of the Government."
—James Buchanan, 1857

"It is the duty of those serving the people in public place to closely limit public expenditures to the actual needs of the Government economically administered, because this bounds the right of the Government to exact tribute from the earnings of labor or the property of the citizen."
—Grover Cleveland, 1885

The 2008 Federal Budget
by Rep. Ron Paul

April 2, 2007

The fiscal year 2008 budget, passed in the House of Representatives last week, is a monument to irresponsibility and profligacy. It shows that Congress remains oblivious to the economic troubles facing the nation, and that political expediency trumps all common sense in Washington. To the extent that proponents and supporters of these unsustainable budget increases continue to win reelection, it also shows that many Americans unfortunately continue to believe government can provide them with a free lunch.

To summarize, Congress proposes spending roughly $3 trillion in 2008. When I first came to Congress in 1976, the federal government spent only about $300 billion. So spending has increased tenfold in thirty years, and tripled just since 1990.

About one-third of this $3 trillion is so-called discretionary spending; the remaining two-thirds is deemed “mandatory” entitlement spending, which means mostly Social Security and Medicare. I’m sure many American voters would be shocked to know their elected representatives essentially have no say over two-thirds of the federal budget, but that is indeed the case. In fact the most disturbing problem with the budget is the utter lack of concern for the coming entitlement meltdown.

For those who thought a Democratic congress would end the war in Iraq, think again: their new budget proposes supplemental funds totaling about $150 billion in 2008 and $50 billion in 2009 for Iraq. This is in addition to the ordinary Department of Defense budget of more than $500 billion, which the Democrats propose increasing each year just like the Republicans.

The substitute Republican budget is not much better: while it does call for freezing some discretionary spending next year, it increases military spending to make up the difference. The bottom line is that both the Democratic and Republican budget proposals call for more total spending in 2008 than 2007.

My message to my colleagues is simple: If you claim to support smaller government, don’t introduce budgets that increase spending over the previous year. Can any fiscal conservative in Congress honestly believe that overall federal spending cannot be cut 25%? We could cut spending by two-thirds and still have a federal government as large as it was in 1990.

Congressional budgets essentially are meaningless documents, with no force of law beyond the coming fiscal year. Thus budget projections are nothing more than political posturing, designed to justify deficit spending in the near term by promising fiscal restraint in the future. But the time for thrift never seems to arrive: there is always some new domestic or foreign emergency that requires more spending than projected.

The only certainty when it comes to federal budgets is that Congress will spend every penny budgeted and more during the fiscal year in question. All projections about revenues, tax rates, and spending in the future are nothing more than empty promises. Congress will pay no attention whatsoever to the 2008 budget in coming years.

"[The] Constitution is an outdated document..."
—U.S. Attorney Alberto Gonzalez under Bush

"I told the president I thought his Justice Department was out of control..."
—Rep. Dick Armey (R—TX)

Since 9/11 the federal government has utilized the the threat of terrorism to attack our most basic liberties. The Patriot Act was passed utilizing fear-mongering and it facilitates general open-ended searches, and all without proper constitutional authority or judicial oversight. This practice is analogous to the illicit Writs of Assistance issued by the British during their administration of the American colonies. Agents are given a blank check to usurp the constitutional protections of the The Bill of Rights. Subversion of due process, entrapment and underhanded tactics are routinely utilized by federal law enforcement as Andrew Napolitano documents in his book Constitutional Chaos.

"The protections of the Fourth Amendment are clear. The right to protection from unlawful searches is an indivisible American value. Two hundred years of court decisions have stood in defense of this fundamental right. The state's interest in crime-fighting should never vitiate the citizens' Bill of Rights."
—John Ashcroft, 1997, long before 9/11

Question the PATRIOT Act Now – Before It's Too Late
by Rep. Ron Paul

Recent revelations that the National Security Agency has conducted broad surveillance of American citizens' e-mails and phone calls raise serious questions about the proper role of government in a free society. This is an important and healthy debate, one that too often goes ignored by Congress.

Public concerns about the misnamed PATRIOT Act are having an impact, as the Senate last week refused to reauthorize the bill for several years. Instead, Congress will be back in Washington next month to consider many of the Act's most harmful provisions.

Of course most governments, including our own, cannot resist the temptation to spy on their citizens when it suits government purposes. But America is supposed to be different. We have a mechanism called the Constitution that is supposed to place limits on the power of the federal government. Why does the Constitution have an enumerated powers clause, if the government can do things wildly beyond those powers – such as establish a domestic spying program? Why have a 4th Amendment, if it does not prohibit government from eavesdropping on phone calls without telling anyone?

We're told that Sept. 11 changed everything, that new government powers like the PATRIOT Act are necessary to thwart terrorism. But these are not the most dangerous times in American history, despite the self-flattery of our politicians and media. This is a nation that expelled the British, saw the White House burned to the ground in 1814, fought two world wars, and faced down the Soviet Union. Sept. 11 does not justify ignoring the Constitution by creating broad new federal police powers. The rule of law is worthless if we ignore it whenever crises occur.

The administration assures us that domestic surveillance is done to protect us. But the crucial point is this: Government assurances are not good enough in a free society. The overwhelming burden must always be placed on government to justify any new encroachment on our liberty. Now that the emotions of Sept. 11 have cooled, the American people are less willing to blindly accept terrorism as an excuse for expanding federal surveillance powers. Conservatives who support the Bush administration should remember that powers we give government today will not go away when future administrations take office.

Some senators last week complained that the PATRIOT Act is misunderstood. But it's not the American public's fault nobody knows exactly what the PATRIOT Act does. The Act contains over 500 pages of detailed legalese, the full text of which was neither read nor made available to Congress in a reasonable time before it was voted on – which by itself should have convinced members to vote against it. Many of the surveillance powers authorized in the Act are not clearly defined and have not yet been tested. When they are tested, court challenges are sure to follow. It is precisely because we cannot predict how the PATRIOT Act will be interpreted and used in future decades that we should question it today.

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
—IV Amendment