Yes, but he is part of the Tea Party, which is not going to get much support from even mainstream Republicans because of their refusal to compromise. I don't want to get too off-topic here, but the Tea Partiers are saying that Obama's debt reduction plan is "class warfare" because they are "unfairly" taxing the rich, yet they refuse to compromise on this while demanding massive cuts in goverment spending. Basically, they want to have their cake, and eat it too.
This is under the assumption that "compromise" is the solution. If compromise isn't the solution, then it's perfectly reasonable for Ron Paul, or the Tea Party, to demand a decrease in both taxes and government spending.
Of course, I would like to keep the topic on Ron Paul, not the Tea Party.
I do agree. But the GoP candidate MUST either jump-start the economy or create jobs quickly. Otherwise, the candidate will be a one-term president (should Obama lose the election).
The government can NOT jump start the economy. You can't take 1,000,000 dollars from the private sector, and use it to "create" jobs. The private sector is now 1,000,000 dollars poorer, and that's 1,000,000 dollars worth of goods and services the private sector now lacks. Jobs were not created, they were merely shifted to government jobs or government funded jobs.
For example, let's say the government wanted to create a bridge as a means of "creating jobs". The government spends 1,000,000 dollars from taxes to create this bridge. When the bridge is done, you not only see a beautiful bridge, but you also see the 1,000 workers who worked on the bridge and were employed for a year. All seems well.
However, the bridge wasn't created for convenience of travel, and was therefore a waste of money. However, what about the jobs it created? By taking 1,000,000 dollars from taxes, the people who pays the taxes now have 1,000,000 less to purchase on all the things they want. Because the people have less money to spend, they can only afford to buy less, and by buying less businesses are now selling less. For example, John had 100 dollars and he wanted to buy both a Nintondo Mii and a PooStation7. Both cost 45 dollars, costing a total of 90 dollars. However, John was taxed 20 dollars, now John only has enough money for one system. Obviously, it doesn't sound like a big deal since I just mentioned John who had to buy less, but what about Susan, Gary, and Samantha? Everyone has less purchasing power, meaning they all must buy less which in turn means less goods sold. This harms businesses indirectly. That's jut what happens when you tax the people. When you tax business owners, they have less money to expand their business, to hire more people themselves, or to increase the quality of their products.
It's easy to see the 1,000 men who were hired, but you need to train yourself to see that you ended up with a bridge that nobody needed. Not only that, but you must also train yourself to see the businesses who sold less goods due to people having less purchasing power. Because people have less purchasing power, businesses can't afford to hire people, or they can't sell enough products which puts them out of business (which the taxation was supposed to save businesses in the first place).
* I am talking as if the bridge was built primarily to create jobs. I am not talking about the government building a bridge because a bridge was needed, which is an entirely different debate.
