May 31st, 2005
Congressman Ron Paul will open a district office in Galveston in July to better serve residents in surrounding areas, including the city of Galveston itself, Anahuac, Baytown, League City, and Texas City. The goal is to provide convenient constituent service for citizens living in Galveston and Chambers counties. The new office will be located in the federal building at 601 Rosenberg on Galveston Island.
Paul also maintains offices in Lake Jackson and Victoria.
Constituents needing help with federal agencies like the Social Security Administration, Veterans Administration, and the Internal Revenue Service can call or visit with office staff for assistance. The Galveston office also will provide constituents with an opportunity to meet Congressman Paul and discuss federal issues with him.
Paul will host a town hall meeting to mark the opening of the office later this summer.
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May 25th, 2005
Washington, DC: Congressman Ron Paul yesterday joined with colleague Walter Jones of North Carolina in voting to allocate an additional $20 million to the Army Corps of Engineers in 2006.
Under Congressman Jones’s amendment to an energy and water spending bill, the Army Corps of Engineers would receive a 2.1% increase in its operations and maintenance account. This increase is very modest, as the administrative budget at the Department of Energy has grown 21% since 2003. This additional $20 million comes at no additional cost to taxpayers , as the Jones amendment shifts existing funds from administrative departments to actual projects on our nation’s waterways.
The Army Corps of Engineers is involved in several important projects in the 14 th congressional district, including channel dredging and flood plain mitigation.
“Congress doesn’t need to spend more money, it needs to spend money more wisely,” Paul stated. “Congress spends plenty of money on highway, bridge, and road infrastructure, while waterways, inlets, and harbors are neglected. The Department of Energy, like most federal agencies, spends too much on administrative costs at the expense of its true mission. I want the majority of the Army Corps budget spent on nuts and bolts projects in places like Victoria, Matagorda, and Galveston counties, not in Washington DC.”
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May 24th, 2005
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No Federal Funding for Stem Cell Research<br />
Mr. Speaker, the issue of government funding of embryonic stem cell research is one of the most divisive matters facing the country. While I sympathize with those who see embryonic stem cell research as a path to cures for dreadful diseases that have stricken so many Americans, I strongly object to forcing those Americans who believe embryonic stem cell research is immoral to subsidize such research with their tax dollars.
The question that should concern Congress today is: Does the US government have the constitutional authority to fund any form of stem cell research? The clear answer to that question is no. A proper constitutional position would reject federal funding for stem cell research, while allowing individual states and private citizens to decide whether to permit, ban, or fund this research. Therefore, I must vote against HR 810.
Unfortunately, many congressional opponents of embryonic stem cell research disregard the Constitution by supporting HR 2520, an “acceptable” alternative that funds umbilical-cord stem cell research. While this approach is much less objectionable than funding embryonic stem cell research, it is still unconstitutional. Therefore, I must also oppose HR 2520.
Federal funding of medical research guarantees the politicization of decisions about what types of research for what diseases will be funded. Thus, scarce tax resources are allocated according to who has the most effective lobby rather than on the basis of need or even likely success. Federal funding also causes researchers to neglect potential treatments and cures that do not qualify for federal funds. Ironically, an example of this process may be found in HR 2520: some research indicates that adult stem cells may be as useful or more useful to medical science than either embryonic or umbilical cord stem cells. In fact, the supporters of embryonic stem cell research may have a point when they question the effectiveness of umbilical cord stem cells for medical purposes. Yet if HR 2520 becomes law, researchers will have an incentive to turn away from adult stem cell research in order to receive federal funds for umbilical cord stem cell research!
Legal questions relating to ethical dilemmas should be resolved at the local level, as the Constitution provides. Congress should follow the Constitution and reject federal funding of stem cell research.
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May 13th, 2005
Washington, DC: Congressman Ron Paul today denounced a Pentagon recommendation to close Naval State Ingleside, as “short-sighted and misguided defense policy.” The Department of Defense Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) commission released a report this morning, which included the recommendation to close Ingleside. NAS Ingleside is located north of Corpus Christi.
“The Pentagon talks about saving $3 or $5 billion annually by closing American military bases, but we spend that much in a single month in Iraq,” Paul stated. “Our priorities are dead wrong. It’s absurd to spend so much building bases overseas while closing bases at home. Homeland security, first and foremost, requires securing American shores and borders . What kind of national security policy deems the defense of Uzbekistan, Korea, or Iraq more important than the defense of the Texas Gulf Coast?”
“Ingleside is critical to the defense of the entire Gulf Coast,” Paul continued. “It is the only deep-water Navy port on the Gulf that is capable of docking any vessel in the fleet, including aircraft carriers. It represents a staging point for the shoreline defense of the entire southern United States. If the Pentagon closes Naval Station Ingleside, America’s southern shoreline will be essentially unprotected. It makes no sense whatsoever to close the sole military ship channel in the southern U.S. capable of docking and launching a complete defensive fleet.”
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May 4th, 2005
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Republicans Should Not Support a UN Court<br />
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this resolution. The idea that the United States Congress should demand that Nigeria deport a former president of Liberia to stand trial in a United Nations court in Liberia is absurd!
I do not object to this legislation because I dispute the charges against Charles Taylor. Frankly, as a United States Congressman my authority does not extend to deciding whether a foreign leader has committed crimes in his own county. The charges may well be true. I do, however, dispute our authority as the United States Congress to demand that a foreign country transfer a former leader of a third country back to that country to stand trial before a United Nations kangaroo court.
As the resolution itself cites, one top UN official, Jaques Klein, has already pronounced Taylor guilty, stating “Charles Taylor is a psychopath and a killer.” But the resolution concludes that “Congress urges the Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to expeditiously transfer Charles Ghankay Taylor, former President of the Republic of Liberia, to the jurisdiction of the Special Court for Sierra Leone to undergo a fair and open trial…” So it is probably safe to guess what kind of “trial” this will be – a Soviet-style show trial. The United Nations has no business conducting trials for anyone, regardless of the individual or the crime. It is the business of Liberia and Nigeria to determine the fate of Charles Taylor.
If we in the United States wish to retain our own constitutional protections, we must be steadfast in rejecting the idea that a one-world court has jurisdiction over anyone, anywhere, regardless of how heinous the accusations. The sovereignty we undermine eventually will be our own.
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May 4th, 2005
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Reject Taxpayer Bank Bailouts<br />
Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1185, the Federal Deposit Insurance Reform Act, expands the federal government’s unconstitutional control over the financial services industry and raises taxes on all financial institutions. Furthermore, this legislation increases the possibility of future bank failures. Therefore, I must oppose this bill.
I primarily object to the provisions in H.R. 1185 which may increase the premiums assessed on participating financial institutions. These “premiums,” which are actually taxes, are the primary source of funds for the Deposit Insurance Fund. This fund is used to bail out banks that experience difficulties meeting commitments to their depositors. Thus, the deposit insurance system transfers liability for poor management decisions from those who made the decisions to their competitors. This system punishes those financial institutions that follow sound practices, as they are forced to absorb the losses of their competitors. This also compounds the moral hazard problem created whenever government socializes business losses.
In the event of a severe banking crisis, Congress likely will transfer funds from general revenues into the Deposit Insurance Fund, which would make all taxpayers liable for the mistakes of a few. Of course, such a bailout would require separate authorization from Congress, but can anyone imagine Congress saying no to banking lobbyists pleading for relief from the costs of bailing out their weaker competitors?
Government subsidies lead to government control, as regulations are imposed on the recipients of the subsidies in order to address the moral hazard problem. This certainly is the case in banking, which is one of the most heavily regulated industries in America. However, as George Kaufman (John Smith Professor of Banking and Finance at Loyola University in Chicago and co-chair of the Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee) pointed out in a study for the CATO Institute, the FDIC’s history of poor management exacerbated the banking crisis of the eighties and nineties. Professor Kaufman properly identifies a key reason for the FDIC’s poor track record in protecting individual depositors: regulators have incentives to downplay or even cover-up problems in the financial system such as banking facilities. Banking failures are black marks on the regulators’ records. In addition, regulators may be subject to political pressure to delay imposing sanctions on failing institutions, thus increasing the magnitude of the loss.
Immediately after a problem in the banking industry comes to light, the media and Congress inevitably blame it on regulators who were “asleep at the switch.” Yet most politicians continue to believe that giving more power to the very regulators whose incompetence (or worse) either caused or contributed to the problem somehow will prevent future crises!
The presence of deposit insurance and government regulations removes incentives for individuals to act on their own to protect their deposits or even inquire as to the health of their financial institutions. After all, why should individuals be concerned when the federal government is ensuring banks following sound practices and has insured their deposits?
Finally, I would remind my colleagues that the federal deposit insurance program lacks constitutional authority. Congress’ only mandate in the area of money, and banking is to maintain the value of the money. Unfortunately, Congress abdicated its responsibility over monetary policy with the passage of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, which allows the federal government to erode the value of the currency at the will of the central bank. Congress’ embrace of fiat money is directly responsible for the instability in the banking system that created the justification for deposit insurance.
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