The ideas of free market economics, sound money, and individual liberties continue to sweep the establishment, one step at a time.
The Washington Independent writes Ron Paul’s Economic Theories Winning GOP Converts:
A funny thing has started happening to Paul since his long-shot presidential campaign ended quietly in the summer of 2008. More Republicans have started listening to him. There are the media requests from Fox Business Channel and talk radio, where he’s given airtime to inveigh on sound money and macroeconomics. There is HR 1207 , the Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009, a bill that would launch an audit of the Federal Reserve System, and which has attracted 112 co-sponsors. When Paul introduced the Federal Reserve Board Abolition Act just two years ago, no other members of Congress signed on.
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The success of Paul’s events, however under-the-radar, have been a pleasant surprise for the experts. “I’ll admit it,” said Thomas Woods. “I was dead wrong in my first reaction when I heard Ron talking about the Fed on the campaign trail. I said, ‘This is too complicated for most Americans. This isn’t going to galvanize people.’ I was wrong! He’s taken an issue that wasn’t even an issue, and he’s got a lot of Americans suddenly fascinated by the Fed, by monetary policy, by the Austrian business cycle theory,” economic ideas promoted by thinkers like Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard that blame central banks for painful business cycles.
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It’s been a rapid rise for an idea that, only months ago, was located firmly in the political fringe. The John Birch Society, the far-right group that Paul has often defended from media criticism, was one of the first groups to encourage members to contact their members of Congress to support an audit of the Fed. Paul’s own coalition, the Campaign for Liberty, has engaged in a months-long grassroots campaign for the bill, something that Paul credited for a surge in support unlike anything he’s introduced in his second stint in Congress.
This is from a daily C4L newsletter email I received today:
Dear Friend of Liberty,
With each passing day, Ron Paul is winning people over to the cause of Federal Reserve transparency and sound money.
More and more Congressmen have been signing onto Dr. Paul’s Audit the Fed bill, HR 1207, and it is now up to a whopping 124 cosponsors.
That cosponsor list now includes over half of the House Republican Caucus. Dr. Paul is truly leading the GOP back to its roots of sound money and fiscal conservatism.
In fact, The Washington Independent’s David Weigel just wrote an important article about how Ron Paul’s message is resonating with Republican lawmakers. All I can say is, “It’s about time!”
Click here to read the article — “Ron Paul’s Economic Theories Winning GOP Converts”.
And today, Dr. Paul proved the case for Federal Reserve transparency to people across America by grilling Ben Bernanke on national television.
Chairman Ben is running scared now that HR 1207 is gaining steam. He even tried to appease Dr. Paul by offering transparency on everything except monetary policy — the Fed’s sole function!
It is clear we are winning this fight, and I believe that ultimately we will see it through to victory. But this is no time to rest on our laurels.
Keep writing and calling your congressman if he has not already cosponsored HR 1207 (click here to find out). Circulate more petitions and Audit the Fed literature to your friends and neighbors to recruit them to this winning effort.
Thank you for all you have done and all you will do. With your continued support, Ron Paul and Campaign for Liberty will return the GOP to its conservative roots, and America back to its founding principles.
In Liberty,
John Tate
President, Campaign for LibertyP.S. Unlike the Fed, Campaign for Liberty cannot print money out of thin air. Only your ongoing financial support allows us to do the work we do. Please click here to donate to Campaign for Liberty.
I have never made my support for the Campaign for Liberty a secret. In Obama Makes an Unnecessary Gamble I wrote:
His fundamental misunderstanding on this matter is that he believes these disagreements are nothing but political games. They are not. They reflect sincere and deep-rooted concerns of the direction where this country has headed. They represent the voices of millions of frustrated workers, businessmen, housewives, students, and retirees calling their representatives, jammed fax machines, letters, town hall meetings, and the like. The movement for liberty is not one of political expediency. Its members are not in it for personal, monetary, or political gain. They are in it for true conviction and with all their heart. But on top of that, it is a movement of substance, reason, logic, and sound understanding of historical and economic facts. There is nothing in the world that could change some one’s mind, once one has understood the true blessings of Freedom, Liberty, Peace, Prosperity, and Happiness. It is a patient movement. It is not in a rush. It isn’t going anywhere. It will grow stronger year by year. To ignore it would be the biggest mistake Obama could make now.
If he continues doing it, the political retaliation will ensue sooner or later in the next Congressional elections and maybe in the next presidential elections. This is an unnecessary, harmful, and avoidable political gamble.
I haven’t changed my mind one bit on what I wrote back then. In fact, the recent developments only reaffirm my beliefs.