Rep Ron Paul (TX) - Domestic Policy

Dr. Ronald Ernest Paul represents the 14th Congressional District of Texas. He is a member of the Republican party and also a Presidential candidate for 2008. His ideology is grounded in principles of small government conservatism with a Libertarian tilt.

In Congress, Ron Paul has been branded as Dr. No, for his consistent record of voting against anything which smacks of federal interference or infringes against individual freedom including entitlement programs like Medicaid, and higher taxes.

On to your question. Which was - What is Ron Paul's view of funding education and how does he view other social programns domestically?

Here's the answer in a nutshell - Ron Paul would like to take all of your entitlements and drown them in a bathtub. FYI, drowning the federal govt. in a bathtub is what a conservative ideologist called Grover Norquist said he wanted to do. But that's too simplistic an answer. Agreed that Ron Paul would blindly vote against any increase or new federal funding. But since you asked, let's take a look at what he says about funding education.

Ron Paul says that ideally, the federal government should have nothing to do with it. He feels it should be left to the state and local authorities. In line with that, he opposed the 'No Child Left Behind' act, and voted against it in President Bush's first term.

He is also against federally issued school vouchers. Being a proponent of free markets, he believes that giving vouchers to attend private schools, at the same time keeping public scool funding intact, does not fit in with a free market. If school vouchers for private school education are given to some families, the money, Ron paul feels, should be taken out of public shool funding, and not with additionla entitlements. Instead, he favors a system of education tax credits ( H.R. 612 ), which would be used for families to choose their own schools.

Ron Paul favors students being allowed to pray in school, but not being forced to do so.

Like I said, he's waiting by the bathtub, and if by some miracle he does become the next President, you'll get to see all these social programs being drowned, one by one. But no fear of that, as yet. He's in the low single digits, and even in New Hampshire, home of the Libertarian spirit, Ron Paul is widely expected to crash and burn. But he's built up quite a bit of enthusiasm among the online crowd, with over $2 million in campaign contributions.

So here's why Ron Paul is important. He can use that money to put his policy positions on television screens across New Hampshire and South Carolina. That will have the unintended ( believe me, he's not doing this just to get people interested in his positions ) effect of forcing the other GOP contenders to face the embarassing truth about runaway federal spending and the dismal state of the Iraq war. Conservative ideology has small government and individual liberty as its core principles. That just happens to be Ron Paul's stated position on any domestic or foreign policy issue. And conservative idelogists make up the core of the motivated Republican primary voters. Come January, the other candidates appealing to the conservative base, Romney, the Thompsons, Huckabee and Brownback, will be praying for Ron Paul to drop out before he starts blitzing TV stations.