Protecting the Sheep from the Wolves

There's nothing much to debunk about this meme, since I will accept the quote as belonging to Ron Paul, without investigation.  He's had a long career and this statement certainly seems to reflect his general views on taxation.  As far as claiming to know the intentions of the Founding Fathers, he is entitled to his opinion.

What I find interesting is the circulation of this Internet meme by conservative groups.  For instance, I saw it shared on the facebook page of this group, called We, the People,Will Be Heard, which seems to be anti-Obama, anti-gun control, anti-liberal. Their tag line is "Sheepdogs educating and protecting the sheep from the wolves." A recent post suggests the group believes that the shootings in Newtown, CT were staged.  

In trying to determine why such a group would choose to share this particular meme, I can only conclude that it has something to do with opposition to President Obama's insistence that spending cuts alone will not fix what ails our economy and his repeated call for raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans.

Ron Paul is a wealthy man. A retired medical doctor and member of congress, most of his income does not come from salaries or even from the sales of books he's written. Most of his money comes from property management groups and investments in gold and silver mining ventures. 

Ours is a capitalistic society -- it's good to be successful and rich -- but I think it's also important to consider how  Ron Paul's proposed tax reforms would benefit him personally, in addition to how they could benefit the nation's economy and the rest of America's working citizens -- because the first is definite and the second is speculative.

"As president, Ron Paul will support a Liberty Amendment to the Constitution to abolish the income and death taxes," his website says. "And he will be proud to be the one who finally turns off the lights at the IRS for good."

He would immediately repeal capital gains taxes, which the candidate says "punish you for success" and "interfere with your efforts to hedge against inflation by purchasing gold and silver coins."

He would repeal the 1993 Social Security tax increase, and work in the long run to exempt Social Security benefits from taxation. Paul would drop the corporate tax rate to 15%.

While he would like to move to a flat tax or fair tax, Paul also suggests something of a back-up plan:

"Restraining federal spending by enforcing the Constitution's strict limits on the federal government's power would help result in a 0% income tax rate for Americans," his website says.

It also might be of interest to the folks at We, the People, Will Be Heard to know Ron Paul's reason for choosing not to endorse Mitt Romney over President Obama in the 2012 election:

“I don’t think there’s enough difference between the two candidates, and I assume the victor today will be the status quo,” the former presidential candidate told CNN on Tuesday. “We’re going to continue with basically the same policies that we’ve had for a long time, so I don’t see the election, as the way its turning out, to be very crucial at all.”