Browne is da man! Listen to his foriegn policy, and other issues:
The Quotable Harry Browne: on the Federal Debt
"I want to pay off the federal debt by auctioning off the assets the government shouldn't own -- western lands, power companies, unused military bases, and commodity reserves. The first proceeds from these sales should buy private retirement accounts for everyone dependent on Social Security. The remaining proceeds should pay down the federal debt. No one can know in advance what the assets will bring in the open market; the estimates have ranged from $5 trillion to $50 trillion. But if they bring in just $12 trillion, we can solve the Social Security problem once and for all, cover the other unfunded liabilities of the federal government, and pay off the entire national debt."
How to Pay off the Federal Debt and Save Social Security at the Same Time:
You might assume that nearly all of what you pay in income tax is used to pay for current government programs, but that isn't the way it works. One quarter of your income tax is used to pay the interest on the national debt. In fact, you pay almost as much for interest as you pay for national defense or welfare.
If we paid off the national debt those interest payments would disappear and this alone would reduce your income tax by nearly a third. I have a plan to do just that. Better still, this plan would also protect the environment and allow us to fund the Social Security privatization plan I described above.
I want to auction off all the federal government's assets that have nothing to do with its constitutional responsibilities. These assets include one third of all the land in the United States, plus power companies, pipelines, commodity reserves, oil and mineral rights, unused military bases, hundreds of thousands of federal buildings, and a host of other properties.
Many people believe these assets are being held in trust to protect them from exploitation, but the truth is otherwise. For instance, many public lands are actually leased out to private interests for mining, grazing, drilling, and logging. Unfortunately, the government loses money on these leases -- and you not only have to pay for the losses, but also for the damage done to the properties.
Even so, you might expect that selling these properties would remove what little protection the government is still able to provide. But this assumes the federal government actually protects these properties. It doesn't. The Interior Department is already $12 billion behind in needed maintenance, and in many cases the government is actually ruining the properties it's supposed to protect.
For example, government mismanagement has obliterated most of the seed-bearing pines in the Blue Mountains of Oregon, and subjected the entire forest to a plague of destructive insects.
But a neighboring forest owned by Boise Cascade is perfectly healthy. This private company takes care of its property because it wants to make sure it will still be valuable 20 or 50 years from now. Boise Cascade has maintained the Ponderosa Pine forest that stood in the Blue Mountains 100 years ago. And this is only one example. Even the National Forest Service officials admit that old growth habitats fare better on private lands.
The same is true for mining and drilling. Private owners want to resell their lands at a good price after they extract the minerals, so they have a vested interest in protecting and restoring them. The government has no such incentive, because no one will suffer financially if its properties deteriorate.
My proposal will halt the continued exploitation and destruction of government-owned natural resources by politically powerful private interests. It will put those resources in the hands of private owners and conservation organizations who will care for them because they're concerned about the future value.
1. The Democratic and Republican approaches harm the environment, and impoverish you in order to pay interest on the failed government programs of yesteryear.
2. My approach not only helps the environment, it will pay off the national debt, cut your taxes, expand the economy, and fund the privatization of Social Security.
Which approach do you prefer?
Your vote for me to be the first Libertarian President will send a clear message that the politicians can no longer run up bills in your name.
Social Security
Overview
Social Security is a fraudulent insurance scheme in which the government collects money from you for your retirement and immediately spends the money on something else. All polls show that an overwhelming majority of young Americans have little hope of getting back a single dollar for the 15% of their wages they're pouring into it.
Social Security is also a bad deal. It provides only a meager monthly income and no estate for you to leave to your children. But the same money, invested in a simple bank savings account, would provide a monthly income several times greater than Social Security, and would build an estate worth hundreds of thousands of dollars for most people.
The Democrats and Republicans want to keep Social Security afloat through tax increases and benefit reductions -- including raising the retirement age, invoking a means test, and changing the cost of living index on which yearly changes are calculated.
But the only way to avoid the coming Social Security collapse is to get the government completely out of Social Security. I want to sell trillions of dollars worth of unneeded, unconstitutional federal assets to finance the purchase of private retirement accounts for those who are dependent on Social Security. This would give older Americans guaranteed contracts with private companies that have never broken their promises -- unlike the U.S. Congress. And younger Americans would be free of the 15% Social Security tax forever. They would be able to save on their own, earn a much higher rate of return, have a prosperous retirement, and build a substantial fortune.
The Quotable Harry Browne: on Social Security
"Social Security is inherently unsound for the simple reason that it's a political program run by politicians for political purposes. It will never work and it will never be truly solvent. The only answer is to take it completely out of the hands of the politicians."
"Social Security brings a new dimension to the field of annuities, insurance, and retirement. There are no long, complicated contracts. No actuarial tables to pore over. Instead, Social Security operates on a very simple principle: the politicians take your money from you and squander it."
"Phasing out Social Security over many years won't work. The first time the stock market dives, the Democrats and the Republicans will use that as an excuse to take over your retirement once again."
"You're told the government has to run your retirement for you because some people are too irresponsible to do so for themselves. But it's wrong to take responsibility for your retirement away from you simply because some other people are irresponsible."
Foriegn Policy:
Our government has spent trillions of dollars on the military since World War II, and yet we are still completely vulnerable to the whims of any two-bit dictator who can get his hands on a nuclear missile. By involving ourselves in a multitude of treaties around the world, we are liable to be drawn into World War III by a petty dispute between third-rate powers. And by meddling in the internal affairs of foreign nations we make enemies of people who would otherwise be friends. We thus inspire terrorism and subject the American people to threats that should not exist.
Politicians say we must defend our "national interests" abroad. But, then, they define almost anything that happens anywhere as a threat to those interests.
And our Presidents seem to roam the world in search of trouble -- to prove their toughness, to raise poll numbers, to divert attention from scandal, or to create a "legacy."
As President, I will bring American troops home. I will remove us from the entangling alliances that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson warned us about. I will see to it that America has a proper defense against any missile attack. We will be far safer than we are now, while spending far less money on the military.
The Quotable Harry Browne: on U.S. Foreign Policy
"If we are responsible for the defense of Europe, what then are the Europeans responsible for -- the defense of Asia?"
"Today we have a weak national defense -- unable to defend us from any two-bit dictator who can get his hands on a nuclear missile. But we have a very strong national offense -- able to bully smaller nations, intimidate the world, and stir up resentments against the U.S."
"Because nothing has been done to defend this country against missile attack, we think we must be armed to the teeth with offensive weapons that can threaten massive annihilation. We think we must get involved in every foreign dispute before it escalates into a wider war. We feel we must intimidate other countries. We don't need any of those things; we need only a proper defense against missiles, and then we can let the rest of the world continue with its age-old animosities -- knowing that their problems can't hurt us."
"The Constitution authorizes the federal government to defend us from enemies -- not run around the world creating enemies."
"War is almost always the first resort of politicians but it should be the last resort of a free people."
"A policy of military non-interventionism and small government would do more for world peace than any saber-rattling, any military peace-keeping mission, any alliance, or any program of foreign aid. An America of freedom, small government, free trade, and goodwill toward all would be an inspiration to the world's people -- a country that is safe, secure, and at peace. If America could achieve this, it would inspire people everywhere to demand the same for themselves."
"We're told that the U.S. has "national interests" that must be promoted by American intervention overseas. But who decides what those national interests are? It's not you and it's not me. As with domestic issues, the politicians will make all the decisions -- relying for "counsel" on those who have the most political influence. In other words, foreign policy is just one more political boondoggle."
"Isn't it obvious that it makes no moral sense to try to save innocent people anywhere by bombing other innocent people? If that seems to be the only way to solve a problem, you're in the wrong place at the wrong time."
The World's Policeman
U.S. intervention and meddling hasn't brought us a single unqualified success since World War II -- not in Somalia, Rwanda, Libya, Nicaragua, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, the Philippines, Vietnam, Korea, or Cuba.
In every case, the original reason for our intervention still exists (as with Iraq and Libya) or an enemy that's equally bad has replaced the original adversary (as in Afghanistan). The U.S. armed the Afghan "freedom fighters," Saddam Hussein, and Manuel Noriega (among others) -- all of whom became enemies that eventually had to be attacked.
This has happened again and again for the simple reason that war is just one more big government program -- and, like any government program, we shouldn't be surprised when it achieves the exact opposite of its promised results.
Where Meddling Leads
In 1937 Winston Churchill told an American reporter:
"America should have minded her own business and stayed out of the [first] World War. If you hadn't entered the war the Allies would have made peace with Germany in the Spring of 1917. Had we made peace then there would have been no collapse in Russia followed by Communism, and Germany would not have signed the Versailles Treaty, which has enthroned Nazism in Germany. If America had stayed out of the war, all these "isms" wouldn't today be sweeping the continent in Europe and breaking down parliamentary government, and if England had made peace early in 1917, it would have saved over one million British, French, American, and other lives."
As a major leader in the British government during World War I, Winston Churchill knew what he was talking about.
And he was right. Without our intervention, World War I would have ended in a negotiated peace, and the provisional government in Russia probably would have been able to resist the Communists. Russia would have been a democracy instead of a dictatorship. There would have been no Soviet Union, no Lenin, no Stalin, no famines, no Gulags, no purges, and no Cold War. There would have been no Communist China, Communist Korea, Communist Vietnam, Communist Cuba, or Cambodian killing fields.
And if America had stayed out of World War I, there would have been no Hitler, no World War II, and no Holocaust. And tens of millions of innocent lives would have been saved.
Stirring up Trouble
Today, the Cold War is over but our political leaders seem determined to lose the peace.
There is no Soviet Union now, but our government still acts as though we were in danger of imminent attack. You are paying for the defense of Europe -- a group of nations with as many people and as much wealth as we have. You are paying for a military designed to fight two wars simultaneously.
Most of the world is at peace, but our politicians and diplomats are searching the globe looking for any excuse possible to get us involved in other people's squabbles.
Why? Because, as Randolph Bourne put it, war is the health of the state. Constant dangers mean more power and money for politicians and government -- and less freedom and prosperity for you.
This self-destructive foreign policy also means less security, as you are exposed more and more to the threat of terrorism. Every conflict has at least two sides. And whenever we intervene, we make an enemy of at least one side (and sometimes both). Many of these enemies can't threaten us with missiles, so they engage in acts of terrorism to get back at us -- blowing up American buildings.
How can we defend ourselves against the terrorists? The politicians have a ready answer: take away more of your liberty by authorizing wiretaps and illegal searches of our property. Again, war is the health of the state.
Wouldn't it make more sense simply to quit meddling in other people's disputes? Wouldn't that be safer than having our troops stationed in nearly a hundred countries around the world -- treated in some countries as an occupying force and in others as a target for terrorism?
Yes, it's a dangerous world out there. But who made it so? To some extent, it is our politicians who roam the world in search of trouble. Not surprisingly, they almost always manage to find it.
The Quotable Harry Browne: on the Federal Debt
"I want to pay off the federal debt by auctioning off the assets the government shouldn't own -- western lands, power companies, unused military bases, and commodity reserves. The first proceeds from these sales should buy private retirement accounts for everyone dependent on Social Security. The remaining proceeds should pay down the federal debt. No one can know in advance what the assets will bring in the open market; the estimates have ranged from $5 trillion to $50 trillion. But if they bring in just $12 trillion, we can solve the Social Security problem once and for all, cover the other unfunded liabilities of the federal government, and pay off the entire national debt."
How to Pay off the Federal Debt and Save Social Security at the Same Time:
You might assume that nearly all of what you pay in income tax is used to pay for current government programs, but that isn't the way it works. One quarter of your income tax is used to pay the interest on the national debt. In fact, you pay almost as much for interest as you pay for national defense or welfare.
If we paid off the national debt those interest payments would disappear and this alone would reduce your income tax by nearly a third. I have a plan to do just that. Better still, this plan would also protect the environment and allow us to fund the Social Security privatization plan I described above.
I want to auction off all the federal government's assets that have nothing to do with its constitutional responsibilities. These assets include one third of all the land in the United States, plus power companies, pipelines, commodity reserves, oil and mineral rights, unused military bases, hundreds of thousands of federal buildings, and a host of other properties.
Many people believe these assets are being held in trust to protect them from exploitation, but the truth is otherwise. For instance, many public lands are actually leased out to private interests for mining, grazing, drilling, and logging. Unfortunately, the government loses money on these leases -- and you not only have to pay for the losses, but also for the damage done to the properties.
Even so, you might expect that selling these properties would remove what little protection the government is still able to provide. But this assumes the federal government actually protects these properties. It doesn't. The Interior Department is already $12 billion behind in needed maintenance, and in many cases the government is actually ruining the properties it's supposed to protect.
For example, government mismanagement has obliterated most of the seed-bearing pines in the Blue Mountains of Oregon, and subjected the entire forest to a plague of destructive insects.
But a neighboring forest owned by Boise Cascade is perfectly healthy. This private company takes care of its property because it wants to make sure it will still be valuable 20 or 50 years from now. Boise Cascade has maintained the Ponderosa Pine forest that stood in the Blue Mountains 100 years ago. And this is only one example. Even the National Forest Service officials admit that old growth habitats fare better on private lands.
The same is true for mining and drilling. Private owners want to resell their lands at a good price after they extract the minerals, so they have a vested interest in protecting and restoring them. The government has no such incentive, because no one will suffer financially if its properties deteriorate.
My proposal will halt the continued exploitation and destruction of government-owned natural resources by politically powerful private interests. It will put those resources in the hands of private owners and conservation organizations who will care for them because they're concerned about the future value.
1. The Democratic and Republican approaches harm the environment, and impoverish you in order to pay interest on the failed government programs of yesteryear.
2. My approach not only helps the environment, it will pay off the national debt, cut your taxes, expand the economy, and fund the privatization of Social Security.
Which approach do you prefer?
Your vote for me to be the first Libertarian President will send a clear message that the politicians can no longer run up bills in your name.
Social Security
Overview
Social Security is a fraudulent insurance scheme in which the government collects money from you for your retirement and immediately spends the money on something else. All polls show that an overwhelming majority of young Americans have little hope of getting back a single dollar for the 15% of their wages they're pouring into it.
Social Security is also a bad deal. It provides only a meager monthly income and no estate for you to leave to your children. But the same money, invested in a simple bank savings account, would provide a monthly income several times greater than Social Security, and would build an estate worth hundreds of thousands of dollars for most people.
The Democrats and Republicans want to keep Social Security afloat through tax increases and benefit reductions -- including raising the retirement age, invoking a means test, and changing the cost of living index on which yearly changes are calculated.
But the only way to avoid the coming Social Security collapse is to get the government completely out of Social Security. I want to sell trillions of dollars worth of unneeded, unconstitutional federal assets to finance the purchase of private retirement accounts for those who are dependent on Social Security. This would give older Americans guaranteed contracts with private companies that have never broken their promises -- unlike the U.S. Congress. And younger Americans would be free of the 15% Social Security tax forever. They would be able to save on their own, earn a much higher rate of return, have a prosperous retirement, and build a substantial fortune.
The Quotable Harry Browne: on Social Security
"Social Security is inherently unsound for the simple reason that it's a political program run by politicians for political purposes. It will never work and it will never be truly solvent. The only answer is to take it completely out of the hands of the politicians."
"Social Security brings a new dimension to the field of annuities, insurance, and retirement. There are no long, complicated contracts. No actuarial tables to pore over. Instead, Social Security operates on a very simple principle: the politicians take your money from you and squander it."
"Phasing out Social Security over many years won't work. The first time the stock market dives, the Democrats and the Republicans will use that as an excuse to take over your retirement once again."
"You're told the government has to run your retirement for you because some people are too irresponsible to do so for themselves. But it's wrong to take responsibility for your retirement away from you simply because some other people are irresponsible."
Foriegn Policy:
Our government has spent trillions of dollars on the military since World War II, and yet we are still completely vulnerable to the whims of any two-bit dictator who can get his hands on a nuclear missile. By involving ourselves in a multitude of treaties around the world, we are liable to be drawn into World War III by a petty dispute between third-rate powers. And by meddling in the internal affairs of foreign nations we make enemies of people who would otherwise be friends. We thus inspire terrorism and subject the American people to threats that should not exist.
Politicians say we must defend our "national interests" abroad. But, then, they define almost anything that happens anywhere as a threat to those interests.
And our Presidents seem to roam the world in search of trouble -- to prove their toughness, to raise poll numbers, to divert attention from scandal, or to create a "legacy."
As President, I will bring American troops home. I will remove us from the entangling alliances that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson warned us about. I will see to it that America has a proper defense against any missile attack. We will be far safer than we are now, while spending far less money on the military.
The Quotable Harry Browne: on U.S. Foreign Policy
"If we are responsible for the defense of Europe, what then are the Europeans responsible for -- the defense of Asia?"
"Today we have a weak national defense -- unable to defend us from any two-bit dictator who can get his hands on a nuclear missile. But we have a very strong national offense -- able to bully smaller nations, intimidate the world, and stir up resentments against the U.S."
"Because nothing has been done to defend this country against missile attack, we think we must be armed to the teeth with offensive weapons that can threaten massive annihilation. We think we must get involved in every foreign dispute before it escalates into a wider war. We feel we must intimidate other countries. We don't need any of those things; we need only a proper defense against missiles, and then we can let the rest of the world continue with its age-old animosities -- knowing that their problems can't hurt us."
"The Constitution authorizes the federal government to defend us from enemies -- not run around the world creating enemies."
"War is almost always the first resort of politicians but it should be the last resort of a free people."
"A policy of military non-interventionism and small government would do more for world peace than any saber-rattling, any military peace-keeping mission, any alliance, or any program of foreign aid. An America of freedom, small government, free trade, and goodwill toward all would be an inspiration to the world's people -- a country that is safe, secure, and at peace. If America could achieve this, it would inspire people everywhere to demand the same for themselves."
"We're told that the U.S. has "national interests" that must be promoted by American intervention overseas. But who decides what those national interests are? It's not you and it's not me. As with domestic issues, the politicians will make all the decisions -- relying for "counsel" on those who have the most political influence. In other words, foreign policy is just one more political boondoggle."
"Isn't it obvious that it makes no moral sense to try to save innocent people anywhere by bombing other innocent people? If that seems to be the only way to solve a problem, you're in the wrong place at the wrong time."
The World's Policeman
U.S. intervention and meddling hasn't brought us a single unqualified success since World War II -- not in Somalia, Rwanda, Libya, Nicaragua, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, the Philippines, Vietnam, Korea, or Cuba.
In every case, the original reason for our intervention still exists (as with Iraq and Libya) or an enemy that's equally bad has replaced the original adversary (as in Afghanistan). The U.S. armed the Afghan "freedom fighters," Saddam Hussein, and Manuel Noriega (among others) -- all of whom became enemies that eventually had to be attacked.
This has happened again and again for the simple reason that war is just one more big government program -- and, like any government program, we shouldn't be surprised when it achieves the exact opposite of its promised results.
Where Meddling Leads
In 1937 Winston Churchill told an American reporter:
"America should have minded her own business and stayed out of the [first] World War. If you hadn't entered the war the Allies would have made peace with Germany in the Spring of 1917. Had we made peace then there would have been no collapse in Russia followed by Communism, and Germany would not have signed the Versailles Treaty, which has enthroned Nazism in Germany. If America had stayed out of the war, all these "isms" wouldn't today be sweeping the continent in Europe and breaking down parliamentary government, and if England had made peace early in 1917, it would have saved over one million British, French, American, and other lives."
As a major leader in the British government during World War I, Winston Churchill knew what he was talking about.
And he was right. Without our intervention, World War I would have ended in a negotiated peace, and the provisional government in Russia probably would have been able to resist the Communists. Russia would have been a democracy instead of a dictatorship. There would have been no Soviet Union, no Lenin, no Stalin, no famines, no Gulags, no purges, and no Cold War. There would have been no Communist China, Communist Korea, Communist Vietnam, Communist Cuba, or Cambodian killing fields.
And if America had stayed out of World War I, there would have been no Hitler, no World War II, and no Holocaust. And tens of millions of innocent lives would have been saved.
Stirring up Trouble
Today, the Cold War is over but our political leaders seem determined to lose the peace.
There is no Soviet Union now, but our government still acts as though we were in danger of imminent attack. You are paying for the defense of Europe -- a group of nations with as many people and as much wealth as we have. You are paying for a military designed to fight two wars simultaneously.
Most of the world is at peace, but our politicians and diplomats are searching the globe looking for any excuse possible to get us involved in other people's squabbles.
Why? Because, as Randolph Bourne put it, war is the health of the state. Constant dangers mean more power and money for politicians and government -- and less freedom and prosperity for you.
This self-destructive foreign policy also means less security, as you are exposed more and more to the threat of terrorism. Every conflict has at least two sides. And whenever we intervene, we make an enemy of at least one side (and sometimes both). Many of these enemies can't threaten us with missiles, so they engage in acts of terrorism to get back at us -- blowing up American buildings.
How can we defend ourselves against the terrorists? The politicians have a ready answer: take away more of your liberty by authorizing wiretaps and illegal searches of our property. Again, war is the health of the state.
Wouldn't it make more sense simply to quit meddling in other people's disputes? Wouldn't that be safer than having our troops stationed in nearly a hundred countries around the world -- treated in some countries as an occupying force and in others as a target for terrorism?
Yes, it's a dangerous world out there. But who made it so? To some extent, it is our politicians who roam the world in search of trouble. Not surprisingly, they almost always manage to find it.
wonder if the 
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