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Aug. 28, 2017 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
19:29
Ron Paul Discusses Hurricane Harvey

Due to Hurricane Harvey, today's Liberty Report is audio only. Ron Paul discusses the storm and thanks everyone for the warm wishes that have been expressed over the last several days. Due to Hurricane Harvey, today's Liberty Report is audio only. Ron Paul discusses the storm and thanks everyone for the warm wishes that have been expressed over the last several days.

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Coming Soon: Major Leave 00:11:17
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
Obviously, this is audio today, and there are no visuals because we're in the middle of a hurricane here in Lake Jackson, Texas, which is outside of Houston.
Co-host today, though, for this brief update, is Chris Rossini, and he's calling in from a high and dry place in New Jersey.
Chris, nice to have you with us today.
Thank you, Dr. Paul.
Glad that everything is okay at the Ron Paul Estate.
Yeah, right now, things are doing pretty well.
We've had a lot of calls and a lot of emails, a lot of expressing concerns and prayers given because when you look at that map, it is devastating.
And it is still devastating.
In this last hour, actually, things got a little worse.
And if you hear some noise, that's the rain tuning down.
We were all hopeful here in the last several hours in the Lake Jackson area that it would lighten up and that the little pressure area would move out.
And some of the really, really heavy storms, if you look at the map, it looks like they're all over Louisiana.
But there's still a lot of rain coming and a lot of promise it'll come.
And our biggest concern here in Lake Jackson is the drainage of all the rivers that come down and drain in our area.
So even if they quit raining right now, we still have a lot to be concerned about.
But in spite of that, we've done pretty well right in our area because in many ways what happened was the real bad wind was south of us and a lot of the heavier rain was north of us.
Interestingly, many towns, if you watch any news, many of those towns that they mentioned had been at one time in the congressional district that I represented.
So I know the area very well.
We ourselves live about 15 miles from the Gulf Coast, but there's been lots of problems.
Over the many years I was in Congress.
We did have a lot of floods.
And in some ways, the conditions got very, very bad.
Sometimes, you know, mess things up.
But it looks like this one will be the big one that dumps the most water on us at one time.
But before we talk a little bit more about the weather, I want to thank everybody for their expression of their concerns and the writing and wishing us well and checking up on us.
And right now, I think that we're going to get by okay without leaving.
But we have had a lot of people in town leave.
In the particular place where I live, it was sort of the so-called government mandatory information that we must leave.
But I just don't like that idea of leaving my house.
We have a large family and they're staying close and we can help out.
And we have a place where they can come and hibernate for a while if necessary.
But I do appreciate the many who have expressed their interest in what's happening here.
But quite frankly, this is going to go on for about three more days.
This morning, I thought for sure it was going to lighten up.
And, you know, I've been a little bit lucky on this because the rain would come in spurts.
Sometimes we would be between the band.
And it's sort of unbelievable, but on each of those days, I was able to get out and get my daily walk, which was really pretty amazing.
And so I'm keeping my fingers crossed because if it gives me a 30-minute break or something, I will go out because that's my therapy is to get my exercise and to relax and think things out.
And I think it helps me.
And there's not much I can do about the weather.
You know, some people say that, you know, when you don't have anything else to talk about, you talk about the weather.
Well, today we're going to talk a little bit about the weather because the weather is the issue, and it's not just the issue for people in Texas and elsewhere.
It looks like it's catching the attention of everybody, and government's very much involved.
So we're going to be talking just a little bit about the weather today.
Yes, and I can relate, although I think what you're experiencing down there is much worse.
But I went through Hurricane Sandy up in New Jersey, and it was terrible.
When I look at these pictures from down in Houston, it's almost beyond belief what I'm seeing.
I do want to say hello to Daniel, who had to leave the usual co-host to go to Dallas, and I'm happy to fill in for him today.
But Dr. Paul, I read last night that about 9 trillion gallons of rain fell, which is a huge number and not one that we could even comprehend.
But sometimes events happen that we can't be totally prepared for.
Yet I think many knee-jerk reactions, and this is the Liberty Report, is that the government should have done this or should have done that.
What do you think about that?
Well, you know, like the politicians have said, that you can't ever let an emergency go to waste.
You use an excuse to expand the government or you use the crisis that you have to blame somebody.
And, you know, in a way, I think there's been less of that so far, but it's likely to come.
It's hard to believe that the tone of some of the individuals on some of the liberal station was almost like, you know, it looks like Trump's doing a half-decent job.
And that's disappointed.
That might be leading too much into it, but you know, Darnwell, that there are some out there that wouldn't want him to be successful.
And the other thing that I've noticed, but it's too early to say much about it, is that we haven't heard of a lot of people being killed and dying in this.
But that doesn't mean that as they clean up, they won't find a lot.
But there's just been a few.
Sometimes a real heavy storm where there's more wind damage.
The wind damage was only a very narrow area.
That's when more people get killed and major trees come down and all.
So let's hope that it doesn't amount to a lot of that.
But boy, there's a lot of people that have suffered and continue to suffer.
But there's also a response has been good.
And I think that's man's nature.
They want to help their neighbor.
I hope there was a lot of that in Katrina when Louisiana was in and New Orleans was in such bad shape.
A lot of people wanted to go and help.
And the management of it all was bad because sometimes they were turned away and you heard a lot of stories about it.
Even in a major flood in our congressional district here years ago, the volunteers were always turned away and the federal government took over.
And that's not to say that they're not doing a good job and capable of doing it and helping out right now.
But it does bother me once when the people who want to volunteer their services have trouble even getting into their homes.
And then you read about mistakes.
But there's no way.
The question is, there's no way to be prepared for this.
There was a strong hint that this would come.
There have been warnings.
But a lot of people like me, we just don't like to leave our homes.
Now, Daniel Steele did leave.
He went up to Dallas.
But I think his number one concern was his family.
And, you know, that's a little bit different, the smaller kids and all.
But then, others, there's been many people close to where I live that have gone through a lot.
We moved here in 1968, and we've had several.
Now, I have never left because of a hurricane coming in.
But that doesn't mean I've been avoiding it because there were a few that went until I was in office when one was coming in and I was in Washington.
Someone said, Are you going to get on an airplane and get back to your district and help out?
And I said, No, I'm not going to do that.
What can I do about the storm?
But they just the idea that I had to go back.
So I wisely didn't go back until after the real danger was over.
But most there's a lot of us who would just as soon stay through it.
This last one that occurred, I guess it's eight years ago or so.
My son was Ronnie in charge of the maintenance at the Dow Chemical Plant, and they just had a skeleton crew that had to stay through, and that was a big hurricane.
But, you know, if you're prepared and know what you have to do and try to protect important equipment, you're capable of doing it.
But it's when the people are in homes and homes aren't well built, there's no place to go.
I mean, when you see the pictures, you know, obviously the crisis gets out of hand.
It's interesting.
You mentioned you were asked if you would go down because President Trump is planning on coming down tomorrow, I believe.
And he tweeted that he wanted to wait until it was not a distraction.
But anybody that has had a president visit knows that it's a major distraction.
It's a major undertaking.
What are your thoughts about that, Dr. Paul?
Yeah, he can't change much, you know, not really.
I think let's say he was probably accused young Windsy.
Let's say most of the storm was over and that sort of thing.
The big problem with politics, the political problem, that if you don't do it, you get really, really beat up.
But you're right.
Coming in is a major effort, you know, for security and all these things.
But now it wouldn't add, and they really can't change things.
But I don't think if he flies in and shows concern and indicates that he wants to help, you know, I'm not going to be critical of that.
And that's the thing is, and people will criticize him.
He got a lot of heat over the weekend, even though he has expressed concern that he talked about another issue, believe it or not.
He had another issue that made mention.
And Lord, they just really climbed all over him because he brought something else up.
Well, that's less important.
He should have never said that.
So, you know, we haven't been champions of Donald Trump as president, but there's some times when the critics are a bit unfair, and then that means that we shouldn't do any piling on.
Right.
There's a lot of government idolatry, I guess you could call it.
But based on what I've seen on television, on social media, there have been just tremendous heroic acts by private individuals just helping each other and private organizations.
And people are coming together without a central planner that has to grace his presence there.
So it's wonderful to see how that happens.
What do you think, Dr. Paul?
Federal Aid and Medical Care 00:07:37
One more last question for you about because this is going to come up: federal aid and its role and what the constitutional role of the federal government is.
Yeah.
Well, there's no constitutional provision that the federal government is involved with my house in Lake Jackson.
But that's people who say, well, that's so old-fashioned.
Well, if it's old-fashioned, change the Constitution, but there's no precise authority for that.
But we could apply that to about 80% of what the government does, whether it's medical care or education.
No, they don't have the authority.
And one time in our history, the presidents would veto aid, but now they're already talking about a supplemental appropriation to help out.
And if you're opposed to it, then you want just people to drown.
And it's just one of those things that the government has been involved in the past, but that's not what they want to talk about because it was the bleeding hearts that in some ways contributed to our problem.
They can't create the weather, but nature gets altered when man does things that aren't as logical and doesn't involve moral hazard.
And we're not talking about insurance.
Just as in medicine, what we're talking about today in the disaster we have in medicine, we're not talking about medical insurance.
We're talking about prepaid medical care and taking it from young people and paying it to rich people.
Total distortion of the free market.
And this is what flood insurance has done.
You know, we at one time had a house right on the beach and often think, and we enjoyed it.
It wasn't a super house.
It was a nice house.
But we were protected with windstorm insurance by the government.
So if the market would have said that you have to buy it, it would have been a lot more.
And then less people would build in these areas.
I talked to people, matter of fact, just yesterday, he said, well, it looks like I'm going to have to get my park and my house rebuilt the third time, you know, by insurance.
So it's a real problem.
And the whole thing is, is how do you shift gears and get away from that and say, well, we have to repeal the government insurance program.
But it causes people to build where they shouldn't be built.
If it were more expensive, people would have to pay a full price of what insurance is really worth.
And there would be less houses.
And then when you think about the concrete that goes down, you know, concrete makes these floods much worse.
The water doesn't soak in.
And I did hear a commentary this morning that was a little bit annoying.
I think it was on MSNBC.
The commentator said, well, you know, Houston doesn't have zoning.
They never zoned it.
And that's one of the problems.
Of course, if you don't have zoning and you have deed restrictions, then that's private zoning.
But anyway, it was the fact that we didn't have government zoning in Houston that caused them to just build houses and buildings over place and put down too much concrete.
And it was the free market that made this much worse.
But the whole thing is it was really exactly opposite that way.
There was more concrete and more congestion in these areas because of government, because, you know, who pays for most of the highways and puts most of the concrete down?
And you have to, you can't stop progress, but you can't just put this down and not even think about the cost.
You know, and what do you do now when you're in the middle of things?
I've had to face that question so often in Congress is how do you go?
They'll say, well, you don't believe in medical care for kids, so you get rid of it and they'd all have no medical care.
Well, you know, this is where I had what I call the transition program.
You know, the last thing we should do right now in medical care is, well, okay, you're right.
It's unconstitutional, so we're going to deny medical care for all kids under 12, or that would be insane.
But what I would do, whether it's for taking care of flood problems or taking care of medical care and people who are really dependent and who is made dependent, is save a lot of money from overseas.
We're increasing the budget overseas.
Where are the helicopters that are overseas?
You know, if a crisis like this happened and we have a military base, I mean, it would be insane to say, well, they're not allowed to go over and help people out.
But if you can save billions of dollars from overseas, put some towards the deficit and then tie people over until you get a medical program and convince people that the markets are better than government management.
And you could do that with now.
You could have, you could continue these programs.
Matter of fact, maybe make it even better if people accepted this transition.
But what they want to do is the bipartisan leadership, they love this overseas stuff.
They're talking about more money, but they're never, they're never talking about, you know, cutting anything, especially the military.
So that's really the delimited.
And I think that is a reflection.
This impas we have is a reflection of what the problem is with these riots and these conflict in the streets because this system isn't working very well.
And, you know, the welfare and warfare state, and that's why there's so much anger.
But today, I don't sense the anger here in our district and in the Wake Jackson area.
I sense that people are sick and tired of the rain, they're getting anxious, but they're pretty cooperative and very helpful, and people are helping each other.
And it's actually bringing a lot of goodness out of people.
And I think that is what the market is all about, and people are all about.
It's just their total dependency on government is when you argue over how the money gets down.
But I think in times of crises, if people do come together, we should, in many ways, you know, work our best to make these programs work.
But in many ways, if the government is making conditions worse, which they're capable of, they ought to get out of the way and let the people solve some of these problems and let the volunteers come in.
And so I think there's a lot of good feeling right now about a lot of people who have been helped.
A lot of people are scared.
And let's just hope that the small number of those who have been, you know, have died in this and lost their homes, that they can pull this together and get out of and get some help.
But I wish I could say that this looks like the storm is going to pass, but I hear that we have two or three more days.
And ever since we've been talking here, it is now still early in the morning.
This is the third day of the third day of hurricane.
It's 20 after 10 our time.
And this last hour has been a lot of rain.
So we still have a lot to face.
And personally, my main concern is how much water is going to come down from the north and then flood our area.
Once again, I want to thank everybody for their concern and their expression of support for us getting through this and for our family.
Third Day Of Hurricane 00:00:30
Chris?
Yep.
Thank you very much, Dr. Paul, wishing you and Carol and everyone down in Texas well.
And hopefully you can get another exercise in today at some point.
There you go.
A pleasure being with you today on the Liberty Report.
And I thank our audience for joining us.
Come back soon.
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