Busting the Myth of Ron Paul, Part Three

The way he talks about going back to the Constitution, you'd think Ron Paul actually believes in it. And yet, when the time came for him to actually stand up for that venerable document, he was and continues to be strangely absent. Consider the case of HR 1955, which amounts to a thought crime bill. It was a sickening display of cowardice on the part of Democrats, voting for yet another of the shrub's unconstitutional police state measures. In ordinary times, no Congress in its right collective mind would be allowed to get away with such a thing. But we do not live in ordinary times. But where was Ron Paul, supposedly the champion of the Constitution, in the HR 1955 vote?

No Vote TX-14 Paul, Ronald [R]

Nay OH-10 Kucinich, Dennis [D]

For that matter, where has Ron Paul been on voting for any legislation that actually protects Americans and the Constitution? Here are a couple more interesting comparisons between Paul and Dennis Kucinich.

Ronald Paul missed 666 of 7012 votes (9%) since Jan 7, 1997.

Dennis Kucinich missed 345 of 7012 votes (5%) since Jan 7, 1997.

Ron Paul voted against a bill, HR 2517, which according to the summary:

Amends the Missing Children's Assistance Act to reauthorize through FY2013, and revise requirements for uses of, the annual grant to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children by the Administrator of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Deliquency Prevention.

Why did he do that? And why did he vote against HR 3791, which would do the following:

Securing Adolescents From Exploitation-Online Act of 2007 or the SAFE Act of 2007 - Amends the federal criminal code to expand the reporting requirements of electronic communication and remote computing service providers (service providers) with respect to violations of child sexual exploitation and pornography laws. Requires such service providers, in reporting violations of such laws to the CyberTipline of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (Center) to provide: (1) information on the Internet identity of a suspected sex offender, including the electronic mail address, website address, uniform resource locator, or other identifying information; (2) the time child pornography was uploaded or discovered; (3) geographic location information for the offender; and (4) images of such child pornography. Requires the Center to forward each report which it receives from a service provider to a designated law enforcement agency.

Requires service providers to preserve images of child pornography for evidentiary purposes.

Authorizes the Center to provide images of child pornography reported to its CyberTipline to service providers to enable such providers to stop further transmissions of of pornographic images.

Grants service providers and the Center immunity from civil claims or criminal charges for complying the requirements of this Act, except for certain intentional or reckless misconduct.

Where was Representative Paul on HR 4136? And for someone who claims to stand up for the Constitution, where was he on HR 3773? Look at his voting record for last year, and you'll learn he didn't cast a vote. And where was Ron Paul on the impeachment of Dick Cheney, when Dennis Kucinich introduced the Articles of Impeachment in November last year?

Ron Paul joined his fellow Republicans in voting to table the resolution. Then, when the GOPers in the House decided to suddenly keep the bill alive in order to embarrass Democrats into voting against impeachment, he up and joined his fellow Republicans again. Finally, when the GOPers decided they'd had enough fun and allowed Nancy Pelosi to send the articles of impeachment against Dick Cheney to the Judiciary Committee to die, Paul voted aye.

When it comes to protecting Americans, and when it comes to protecting the Constitution, Ron Paul's record is at best spotty and at worst, indicative of someone who thinks it's a game. A game!

Busting the Myth of Ron Paul, Part Two

Part Two in a series.

It was January 28, 2000. Ron Paul was hellbent on killing "any expansion of OSHAs regulatory authority". [1] Giving his speech to the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, which falls under the House Education and Workforce Committee, he went on a tirade that might shock his more left-leaning supporters today. What was it, you might ask, that he stated?

Modern technology, such as e-mail and the Internet, allows employees to be productive members of the workforce without leaving their homes! The option of "telecommuting" is particularly valuable for women with young children or those caring for elderly parents. Using technology to work at home gives these Americans the chance to earn a living and have a fulfilling career while remaining at home with their children or elderly parents. Telecommuting also makes it easier for citizens with disabilities to become productive members of the job market. Any federal requirements holding employers liable for the conditions of a home office may well cause some employers to forbid their employees from telecommuting, thus shutting millions of mothers, persons caring for elderly parents, and disabled citizens out of the workforce!

It was a lie, of course, that last statement. To date, no one has been prevented from working out of his or her home because of OSHA requirements.

Paul was railing for the "Home Office Protection Enhancement (HOPE) Act, amending the Occupational Safety and Health Act to clarify that OSHA has no authority over worksites located in an employee's residence." In other words, a bill that denied home-based employees the same OSHA protections afforded to employees who work outside the home. Fortunately the bill, which Paul co-sponsored, never passed. Nor did two similar bills from that session of Congress, both designed to strip OSHA protections from home-based workers. [2] [3]

On the surface, Paul's objection to extending OSHA protections to home-based employees might seem valid. After all, employers cannot control conditions in an employee's home that might lead to sickness or injury on the job. But OSHA's web site explains the need thusly:

Even when the workplace is in a designated area in an employee's home, the employer retains some degree of control over the conditions of the "work at home" agreement. An important factor in the development of these arrangements is to ensure that employees are not exposed to reasonably foreseeable hazards created by their at-home employment. Ensuring safe and healthful working conditions for the employee should be a precondition for any home-based work assignments. Employers should exercise reasonable diligence to identify in advance the possible hazards associated with particular home work assignments, and should provide the necessary protection through training, personal protective equipment, or other controls appropriate to reduce or eliminate the hazard. In some circumstances the exercise of reasonable diligence may necessitate an on-site examination of the working environment by the employer. Employers must take steps to reduce or eliminate any work-related safety or health problems they become aware of through on-site visits or other means.

Certainly, where the employer provides work materials for use in the employee's home, the employer should ensure that employer-provided tools or supplies pose no hazard under reasonably foreseeable conditions of storage or use by employees. An employer must also take appropriate steps when the employer knows or has reason to know that employee-provided tools or supplies could create a safety or health risk.

An employer is responsible for ensuring that its employees have a safe and healthful workplace, not a safe and healthful home. The employer is responsible only for preventing or correcting hazards to which employees may be exposed in the course of their work. For example: if work is performed in the basement space of a residence and the stairs leading to the space are unsafe, the employer could be liable if the employer knows or reasonably should have known of the dangerous condition.

Paul, of course, dismissed this eminently reasonable logic. Why? Because his friends in the telecommunications industry were pressuring Congress to do away with even the minimal safety requirements OSHA had in place for home-based employees. (His contributors include AT&T, and between 1999 and 2001 he had received $2,500 in contributions from telecommunications companies.) Ron Paul is ever the champion of unregulated business. But that's not the only example of Ron Paul coming down on the side of business. Far from it. He has opposed increases to the minimum wage, despite there being no evidence that such increases have harmed the economies of states in which minimum wage increases have been passed.

Economic principles dictate that when government imposes a minimum wage rate above the market wage rate, it creates a surplus `wedge' between the supply of labor and the demand for labor, leading to an increase in unemployment. Employers cannot simply begin paying more to workers whose marginal productivity does not meet or exceed the law-imposed wage. The only course of action available to the employer is to mechanize operations or employ a higher-skilled worker whose output meets or exceeds the `minimum wage.' This, of course, has the advantage of giving the skilled worker an additional (and government-enforced) advantage over the unskilled worker. For example, where formerly an employer had the option of hiring three unskilled workers at $5 per hour or one skilled worker at $16 per hour, a minimum wage of $6 suddenly leaves the employer only the choice of the skilled worker at an additional cost of $1 per hour. I would ask my colleagues, if the minimum wage is the means to prosperity, why stop at $6.65--why not $50, $75, or $100 per hour?

Such nonsensical claims aside, there simply is no evidence to support claims that increasing the minimum wage would have any significant negative impact on jobs. Indeed, just the opposite. [4] [5] [6] [7]

These are but a few examples of Ron Paul's deference to corporate interests. Look past his rhetoric of favoring property rights and dig deeper into his sermonizing on the "virtues" of the free market.

Sources for Ron Paul's speeches: http://www.house.gov/...