Fixing the Welfare-Warfare State ft. Dr. Ron Paul

Hey everybody, it's Hannah Charlie Kirk Show. Senator Marsha Blackburn and Ron Paul.

We talk Kash Patel and Doge. Email us as always freedom at charliekirk.com and become a member today members dot charliekirk.com that is members dot charliekirk.com and as always you can email me freedom at charliekirk.com that is freedom at charliekirk.com. Get your tickets to America Fest, the biggest event of the year, Phoenix, Arizona December 19, 2021-22. That is Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, Don Jr., Josh Hawley, Matt Welsh, and more. Amfest.com.

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Go to noblegoldinvestments.com. There's an incredible roster of change makers that President Trump has assembled, but they must get through the US Senate and joining us now is Senator Marsha Blackburn from the great state of Tennessee. Senator, welcome to the program.

Thank you for making the time. Senator, first and foremost, your reaction on this very impressive roster that President Trump is presenting in front of the US Senate. Charlie, I appreciate the fact that President Trump is fulfilling yet another promise and that was to the American people that he would drain the swamp and that he would return Washington and the federal government as being a government of, by, and for the people. And that's exactly what he's doing. It's not business as usual for Donald Trump as it relates to Washington DC bureaucrats and bureaucracies.

This is all about the people and making this country great again and making certain that government works for the people who, by the way, are paying the salary and paying the bill for all of these bureaucrats and all of these agencies. Yeah, so Senator, let's get into some of the recent appointments, most notably, Kash Patel. So this weekend, my friend Kash Patel and friend of this program got nominated for FBI director. Do you plan to support his nomination with a vote?

I believe you will. And also, what are your colleagues saying right now about Kash Patel? Yes, you know, Kash is a great guy with a wonderful background. I liked the diversity in his background that he would bring as director of the FBI.

And Charlie, here's the things to look at. He's been a prosecutor. He prosecuted terrorists for the DOJ.

He was recognized for achievement and excellence in his work as a prosecutor for the DOJ. He served as the lead staffer for the House Intel Committee for Chairman Devin Nunes. He worked on unraveling the Russia hoax and Russiagate, all of those activities. He was the deputy at DNI, which is National Intelligence.

He was the chief of staff for the DOD, which of course, you are responsible for making certain that the budget is working, that the personnel are in place when you are chief of staff at the nation's Department of Defense. So he brings this nice, solid background, this firm understanding of the importance of our nation's intelligence from each and every one of our intel agencies. Now, for the FBI, which is the premier agency in law enforcement, this is a good thing to have someone that understands the inner workings. And I'll have to tell you, I was listening to an interview that someone who had been a deputy director at the FBI was giving and oh, they were just trashing Kash Patel and the fact that he had been nominated and he wasn't an FBI man.

Well, I got news for you. This individual was more concerned about the effect of the individuals at the FBI than they were about the nation's security and making certain that the people know that they can put their trust and confidence in the FBI. And that is what people want to see. They want some transparency. They don't want to know, don't need to know every little detail, but they're saying to the FBI, to the Department of Justice, to the Secret Service, to the IRS, we want to trust what you tell us is accurate and correct. So let's play cut three here because obviously I think you were talking about Mr. Andy McCabe.

Let's play cut three. It's a terrible development for the men and women of the FBI and also for the nation that depends on a highly functioning, professional, independent federal Bureau of Investigation. The fact that Kash Patel is profoundly unqualified for this job is not even like a matter for debate. The installation or the nomination, I guess we should say at this point, of Kash Patel's FBI director can only possibly be a plan to disrupt, to dismantle, to distract the FBI and to possibly use it as a tool for the president's political agenda. Senator, that was the quote that I think you were saying. Kash Patel wants to restore faith and integrity in the FBI. Your thoughts?

Yes, indeed. That is his goal is faith and trust and for people to know that what the FBI is saying is accurate. And Charlie, just listen to what McCabe is saying there.

It is not about the institution and the transparency of the institution or the fact that the institution is responsible to the people of the country. It is about the people that are there at the FBI. In other words, he's saying he's more concerned about his buddies and friends and former colleagues at the FBI than he is about the nation's security.

And when I listen to that quote from him, those comments from him, that is what is first and foremost in my mind. And quite frankly, I think for many people, they are tired of this. It's so interesting when you look at polls like the CBS poll that came out last week. And Charlie, over 60% of the American people agree with the way Donald Trump is handling the transition and with the people that he is putting forward as nominees. And the reason for that is they're pretty fed up with this incestuous nature of these bureaucracies in DC. They're fed up with the fact that people don't go to work and they're still working remotely and they're still drawing a paycheck. But you have the IRS that has two years of the backlog in dealing with IRS filing. You have the VA that has a backlog of over 1 million cases that are awaiting adjudication for benefits in healthcare. And people are saying, hey, wait a minute.

You're not there for yourself. You are there as a public servant for the people of this country. And you should be there to help people, not to thwart or slow down the process, not to hide information, not to say, well, my opinion is this, therefore I'm going to do it this way, regardless of what the law or the facts say. People are tired of that.

This is why Donald Trump has a mandate. It is why the people in this country are saying, let's get this thing back on the right track because we have been on the wrong track. Senator, thank you for your clarity on this.

It is so refreshing. Let me just ask you, do you believe that there is enough momentum amongst your Senate colleagues so that Trump's picks can be installed both quickly and as selected? I do think so. I think that we are going to go through the hearings. I have encouraged people to have these visits early with these nominees to talk with them. And then January 3rd, when we hand the gavel to Republicans, we should move expeditiously to begin these hearings. So on January 20th, we are confirming individuals, and Charlie, I'll tell you this, on inaugural day, we need to stay there and work and confirm the president's cabinet.

I don't care if we work all night. We need to stay in session until we get these confirmations done. The nation has spoken. They are ready for some change and are ready for positive action. Senator, thank you so much. And we hope that you're able to get your Senate colleagues to give Trump his cabinet.

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Charlie, nice to be with you. So, Dr. Paul, I want to start with the Department of Government Efficiency. You've been talking about quite some time about the waste, the abuse, and how the size and scope of the federal government has gone way off course.

Tell us, what is your reaction to Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency? Well, it's very, very positive because I think people are heading that up. They're very dedicated and they want to cut back and they're going to make every effort. Of course, they have a big job ahead because the number of people who want in reality to cut back, those numbers aren't as great as they should be. And that's what bothers me because when you put all the factions together, there's always going to some special interests will be attacked when you start cutting. But they think cutting will be met with a great deal of resistance, but it still has to be done because all this stuff is going to quit anyway. It'd be better that we do it in a deliberate fashion by just starting to cut.

Some people are going to think they're getting cheated, but it has to be done. Otherwise, if we end up with this deficit exploding, and not that it already has an approach to that, it's going to be bad for much worse than if we deliberately pass laws that reduce the size and scope of government. But government by its very nature is inefficient, and that is an overwhelming task to rein it in because that is its nature. The founders tried very hard to make sure that the people would contain the size and growth of government because they too knew governments could get out of hand. But that's the real problem.

And that's why if you nickel and dime it around the edges, I don't think it'll work very well. It might help, but I think that it's the principle of government because there are so many people involved for profits, money, and political power that won't put up with it. Dr. Paul, let's dive into one of those elements that you mentioned, which is that both sides, Republicans and Democrats, are hesitant to cut spending about their kind of cherished government program. On the Democrat side, it's welfare and just general government waste. On the right, though, on the Republican side, it's in the Department of Defense and the war industry. You've been doing this for decades, literally.

Let me ask you this way before we go even deeper in specifics. Is there almost a bipartisan agreement of Republicans saying we won't touch welfare and Democrats saying we won't touch the warmongering and we end up with a welfare-warfare state? Well, that's basically what's happened over the many decades.

It's probably not written, but it's understood because that's the way it works. Because, of course, it used to be that you had a progressive part of the Democrat Party, and they were the anti-war people. But now there is hawkish as some of the Republicans are.

But they do come together. If you think of it only in terms of coalitions in Congress, we miss the whole point. The whole point is who's pulling the strings behind the scene? Who's paying the lobbyists? And the lobbyists have the deal with people who have to make sure that they get their things passed. So a lot of them just cave in for political reasons. Oh, yeah. People will say, well, if you don't vote the cot, you're going to be out of office and what good are you going to be?

So they badger you. But I don't think it's, I think there's less of that understanding that one side will go after spending for military and other on welfare. I think both sides err on both issues. But that is a problem because too many people become dependent. And, of course, I always make the point that if you get it for free, and that's what's the problem with our monetary system, none of this could happen if you have had a signed monetary system where government couldn't buy the debt. So it's going to be endless. They're never going to stop until something is done about the monetary system. And that'll take care of itself eventually. One of the most formative books I read growing up in politics was Three Words and The Fed by Dr. Ron Paul. Doctor, I have to ask you, in all of your decades of experience, what are a couple of noteworthy elements of government waste that are just some of the most egregious?

Well, the one that bothers me the most and continues to is the endless spending on unconstitutional, illegal, and evil wars that we have started with our deeply flawed foreign policy of interventionism and not following the Constitution. Because since the Second World War, we've never even declared a war. We just go and do it.

They don't ask about why. What are we going to do? What's the goal? How much is it going to cost?

Where are we going to get the money? And that's big. And because there's so many of the people that die from this foreign policy, that is another reason that we should all oppose it. But the whole thing is it's sold on national security and patriotism.

And that's all a facade because it has nothing. I feel less safe, you know, with our foreign policy. I don't feel safer. I was in the military for five years. I have a little bit of experience with it.

But I don't think people should feel reserved. I was drafted during the 60s. And that, of course, was where the Vietnam War was going on. And believe me, that was a mess. You know, we elected Nixon to stop the war.

After Nixon was elected, 34,000 Americans were killed. It's insanity. Yes, food stamps and everything else. But this is food stamps for the rich and especially food stamps for the military industrial complex. That's the one that bothers me the most. Well, fair, Dr. Paul.

And so let's go through this. According to publicly declared numbers, the U.S. military spends around $880 billion a year. Russia's entire defense budget is around $100 billion.

They lie about it. They say it's 80, but it's probably closer to $100 billion. What are we doing spending eight times the Russian military budget? Where does that money go? Into the pockets of the military industrial complex. The money never leaves in the weapons. You know, we send all these weapons to Ukraine and the Middle East and all these countries, Syria and whatnot. But the money is stolen from the American people one way or another, either by taxes or by stealing the value of money through inflation. And they say they send that up to the suburbs of Washington, D.C. and the big companies. You know, the F-35 is a boondoggle. I don't know how many trillions it's been spent already.

And nobody believes it's a good airplane, but it's being built. Somebody said once every state has a piece of the action, so nobody will cut back or we'll lose jobs. So that is why it's so vicious and there's no good intention. It does not help us in national security. It does exactly the opposite and it works real hard to, you know, cut back on it and try to avoid the bankruptcy going on.

But it's the principle. Of course, my argument always is back, how do you pay for it? And they couldn't do this if they didn't have the Fed because, no, they're not going to tax us, but they'll steal the money. The tax is the inflation tax. When prices go up, that's a tax.

So they do it that way and it's deceptive and it's just despicable what they do. And I've been mocked at the whole idea that, well, you guys want to start another war? I'm going to introduce an amendment to declare the war. I'm not going to vote against it, but I'm going to make you guys vote for it.

That was when we were going into the Middle East and they mocked it. I was told by the chairman of the committee, Ron, you worry too much. That part of the constitution is we don't follow it anymore. It's not necessary. And they don't, they don't fold anymore. So that's a, you know, it's a combination of violation of the constitution, violation of morality, and then servicing the very, very wealthy and the military industrial complex.

So that one gets me pretty annoyed. Are you ready to lose weight but not sure where to start? I understand.

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Check it out, myphdweightloss.com. So, Dr. Paul, I want to dive deeper into one of the elements here and explain it to the audience that might not be as economically initiated as you are. Can you explain how a central bank allows for big government programs to exist?

It is the original sin and it also is the operative initial ingredient. You cannot build a recipe of big government spending without a central bank. Can you please educate our audience on that? Well, the whole thing is, if you didn't have the central bank, they'd have to get the money from somewhere. People would have to loan the money to the government. They could borrow the money.

But now all they have to do, the principle, the economic activity is the monetizing of debt. But the Fed doesn't buy the Treasury bills and the bonds directly, but there's dealers who are the middlemen. They buy it and then the Fed buys them up. So, where did the Fed get the money to buy these bonds? While they do that, they're participating in rigging interest rates for the benefit of the management of the economy. Oh, the economy needs higher rates. They don't know anything.

It's really a monster. And so, I would say that if you're serious about cutting back on militarism and wars, you have to go ahead and look into the Federal Reserve. And that's why I've spent a couple years ago, you know, at least asking for an audit of the Fed so that they can look into it and see what happens. You know, when we have these international financial crisis, they shift money around to the trillions and trillions of dollars, bailing out their friends on the audit. One of the strongest arguments against the audit is, I want to know what's going on internationally behind the scenes.

It's never recorded. And that's what they cling to the most. They don't want to let anybody know what the Fed does when they're bailing out people.

I think, in a way, I'm really amazed that this thing lasts as long as it does because it's all fakery. But eventually, it ends. And the longer they keep propping it up and running out of these debts, I saw a figure this morning about how much debt into the trillions of dollars that student loans are owed. They're never going to pay that back. You know, it's just going to be written off. See, I believe that all debt and all malinvestment has to be liquidated. The debt is there.

It's too big. We're never going to pay it down. And the malinvestment, that is what business people do, and savers and every paper does, where they're deceived into thinking, oh, interest rates are 3%.

That's a good time to invest in condominiums or some other business. But real interest rates might be closer to what the credit cards call it. Real interest rates be an entertainment, oh, I can't do this.

So, it encourages bad judgment. And the interest rates is the most important price, and that is the price of money when it's loaned out of all prices. And as long as the Fed controls that, the bubble keeps building. So, it amazes me because it's a huge bubble, and it's starting to leak. And right now, people are saying, well, it's all bricks' fault.

We got to curtail bricks. They're going to undermine the reserve currency of the world. So, we have to deal with them. Now, we have to deal with our system, and we have to deal with providing a sound currency that deserves to be called the reserve currency of the world. So, let's just think hypothetically here. President Trump coming as the incoming president has a mandate to try to reform government.

And I know that you don't agree with him on everything, but there certainly is that kind of energy. What could the president do to audit, to reform the Federal Reserve without Congress? Could the president do anything? Could he have a special Fed czar? Could he instruct Scott Besant to look into this as Treasury Secretary?

Could he send an Elon? Yeah, in theory, that's the case. But I think the system is much bigger than that, because the influence there is so great. How many trillions of dollars are involved in the military industrial complex?

How many trillions and trillions of dollars involved in the banking system? And it would work, but I think they're sincere. I think they'd like to do it. Trump has said some encouraging things, but the obstacle is tremendously huge. And that's why I hold back on saying, oh boy, we're on the right track. And a lot of good things are happening.

You know, one of the other big beefs of, of course, most libertarians and conservatives are annoyed by is the Department of Justice. At least we're seeing that exposed. And when the American people learned about what was going on with COVID, the American people woke up.

You know, I think it's, I think there are good things going on. And I think that's what Trump could do the best, is wake people up to this. Because one individual, you know, it'd be nice to think all they do is wave a wand, but you have to have a consensus. The people have to have a general belief in what, what we have. Right now, if you said, oh, Ron Paul's president, he can do it.

He's getting rid of the Fed. Well, it wouldn't work. You have to change the people's minds. And you have to let them know what's going on and why things are happening. But prevailing attitudes are very, very important. But basically, I think education, and Charlie, I know you know something about Austrian free market economics.

That's why I'm very involved in doing that. They need to understand economic policy. Well, and you and Tom Woods and many others were foundational in how I view a lot of these systems.

And I think it's so important. If every young American was able to be schooled in Austrian economics, Chicago School of Economics, outside of Keynesian economics, we'd have a different country. And you understand that money is a finite resource, it must reflect reality, that deficits do matter, that business cycles just don't go poof for no reason, that interest rates are how we communicate with people. These are fundamental truths to our existence.

I think that they're harmonic with nature and the natural order. Dr. Paul, you said we should liquidate our debt. Wouldn't that cause potential global markets to react quite violently?

How would we even do something like that? Well, it is not so much that I just like the idea of liquidating debt. I'm describing what the market does. Because eventually, if you can't earn enough to pay the interest, the debt has to be liquidated. And as is where we are now in our national budget, we have to borrow money to pay the interest on the national debt. So it's going to shrink and be good.

People will say, yeah, be good. We shouldn't have done all that stuff. But it's not going to be paid off. So it's liquidated by eliminating its value. So if you double the money supply, the dollar loses half its value, your real debt goes down. And the government likes that. So the government benefits because real debt is down. And that is sort of the argument. Take out a loan, a 30-year loan, and by the time you have to pay it off, you don't have the money.

It'll be much cheaper for you. So it's just a game they play. But one way or the other, I think the market is very, very powerful.

And it will demand that you go back to square one, unless you have a very rich uncle that's going to take care of you. And so it's all about enlightenment and getting people to realize the situation that we are in. And Dr. Paul, part of that is government-run schools. President Trump has pledged to break apart and end the Department of Education and this idea that the state should be educating our children.

That is something you've been calling for for quite some time. In fact, I remember you called for that in a presidential debate back in 2012, sunsetting the Department of Education. And I just want to tell you, this is the power of Ron Paul. Dr. Paul, you were mocked.

Remember that? When you said that we have to get rid of the Department of Education, people said, oh, that'll never happen. Now an incoming president has plans to give it his all to do that.

Your thoughts, Dr. Paul? Well, they're moving in the right directions, and people are realizing that there'll be tremendous resistance because there's a lot of money involved. But the truth about the government education is very real and very bad. But the other thing is, I like to move back to what would be ideal. And the ideal is not available to us now, but I'm involved in it, and that's homeschooling and private schooling. But that's a small percentage of people. But the Constitution didn't prohibit the states from having a responsibility in education, so they do.

So it's sort of like the horrible things about COVID. Some people just moved away from these states that abused the civil liberties, and people will move because of the educational system. To me, it's amazing that so many people will move for those reasons. And this sort of tells you how smart the founders were. I'm sure they thought about that. If there's individual countries there and there's freedom to move about, and one country goes way off base, I think that not a whole lot of people are moving, leaving Texas and saying, oh, I could find a better life in California.

People are coming from California to Texas. So that's one thing the founders did that we're making use of. But really, the moral thing is the parents are responsible for the education of other kids, and they need to deal with it. And when you think of wokeism in our public schools, it should excite a lot of parents to do something about it. Dr. Paul, are you optimistic that more and more people are opening their eyes away from statism and embracing a more liberty-centric worldview? Yeah, I mean, I'm optimistic because I think the educational effort has been panned out. When I went first to Congress, not that I had anything to do with it, but nobody ever had heard about Austrian economics. I'd have people in major networks.

What's this Australian economics all about? But now, a lot of people know about it. And guess what? They're even talking about the Fed. Somebody said, matter of fact, Tucker Carlson sort of poked a little fun at me. He says, he went on one of our trips, and here he's going to be talking about it. And Tucker admitted, he says, that's crazy. What is he talking about the Fed? But then Tucker said, he had an enlightenment. People did get interested. And I think it's such a big issue, whether you're interested in it, or government.

That is the way to curtail it and reintroduce the notions of personal liberty. Dr. Ron Paul, you are a legend, and we all follow in your footsteps. You had the courage, you had the clairvoyance, and you had the wherewithal to continue on this great journey. Thank you.

We follow you, and you are an icon. Thank you, Dr. Paul. Thank you, Charlie. Nice to be with you. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. Email us as always. Freedom at CharlieKirk.com. Thanks so much for listening, and God bless. For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.