Ron Paul: "It's Going to Get Much, Much Worse"

Dr. Ron Paul has long been a leading voice for limited constitutional government, low taxes, free markets, sound money, civil liberty, and non-interventionist foreign policies.

His last term in the U.S. House of Representatives ended earlier this year, so we caught up with the former Congressman to get his latest perspective on how successfully our national leadership is dealing with Americas economic challenges.

In Dr. Pauls assessment, Washington is too committed to deficit spending and the debt-based economy both operationally and philosophically to expect it to embrace a more fiscally-responsible model without a forcing crisis (which he believes is coming):

[T]hey believe it like a religion that spending is good no matter what the spending is on. And that the deficits don't matter; deficits are not a burden. And even though we have this national debt and we have a foreign debt, they don't consider that so bad, as long as people will spend money. And if the people won't spend any money, the government has this moral obligation to do it.

I don't expect anything else because they are reflecting what I consider prevailing attitudes. And the prevailing attitudes for the last 50 or 60 years, especially since the 1930s, has been spending and deficits and printing money is the way to go.

But where I am encouraged is outside of Washington. You get a better perspective from people like you who talk about this and get people to look at their investments. I think this is beneficial, because a lot of people are realizing this whole system is deeply flawed, and they are looking elsewhere. And that is why I talk a lot about free markets, and property rights, and Austrian economics, and getting rid of the Fed. All these things are now up for grabs. A lot of people, especially the young people, are looking at this. So, for this reason, I am a bit encouraged by what might come out of this.

But I think we are going to go through the ringer. I think it's going to get much, much worse. It is bad enough already, but there is no way that we can step back.

More:
Ron Paul: "It's Going to Get Much, Much Worse"