AskRonPaul: National Debt, D.C. Crackdowns, Tariffs & Inflation
Washington D.C. is spending America into oblivion — and you’re paying the price. In this episode of Ask Ron Paul, Dr. Paul takes your questions on the ever-growing national debt, the federal government’s crackdowns on liberty, the destructive effects of tariffs, and the hidden inflation tax eroding your savings.
From runaway spending to political overreach, Ron Paul breaks down what’s really driving these crises—and what a truly free society would do instead.
📩 Send in your questions for future episodes and join the conversation for liberty. @ x.com/ronpaul
#AskRonPaul #NationalDebt #Inflation #Tariffs #Liberty
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With us today, we have Sir Irkhan with us, our engineer, and I understand he has a few questions for me.
Hi, Dr. Paul Sircon here.
Yes, we're going to do another edition of Ask Ron Paul today, where we take your questions from X.com.
And we had a wonderful batch of questions.
So without further ado, I will go ahead and go to the first question.
And that comes from Empure Hunter.
He asks, good afternoon, Dr. Paul.
Given the rising inflation and economic uncertainty, what advice would you give young people trying to maintain financial stability?
That's a question I get a lot of times.
There's no easy answer to it because it's a consequence of mismanagement of government and mismanagement of our constitution that it put us into this predicament because the government's bankrupt and it caused all the trouble.
Taxes are too high.
Regulations are too many.
The monetary system doesn't work.
We have the inflation.
We're fighting too many wars.
And that's the cause of what he's facing.
But they should recognize this.
Preparation, whether it's when you anticipate in the next year or two of the consequence of our efforts right now, what's happening, the early preparation for young people has to be that they get prepared if they know that there's going to be a problem like this.
And it's just so much closer and there's less time available.
But I think people should recognize that even under these conditions, people should have a job.
You say, well, there's no jobs here and I don't pay enough and all this.
But you know, one thing about Austrian economics, it claims there will be no unemployment except those who can physically not work.
Because the only reason there's unemployment is people won't take the job at a certain level.
So there are some people who like that still.
They'll take any job and they make less and less.
And the minimum wage can be low, but they'll do it.
But they have an incentive to be on their own.
And I think the other thing they do is that, and I felt compelled to do it, and I think it was a natural instinct.
I saved money.
I was making 35 cents an hour.
I could save money that helped me get to college at one time because of just principle of saving.
That was part of my family bringing up.
And people should be trained.
They should be trained to have some skills.
Skills can be very important in emergencies.
And not everybody can do that.
And skills will be different.
But there are all kinds of services that can be done.
And, you know, people who know a little bit about carpentry or whatever, that can be helpful because things can really break down if the whole thing collapses.
And the skills are something that not everybody can do.
But ultimately, working up to that day when you have to do something, I think the most important investment is investing in liberty, you know, because young people have to face the consequences of all the nonsense we put up with the last 30 or 40 or 50 years.
And it's coming to a head and it has to be found.
But that's the case because even under these conditions, finding your allies and people who agree with you and to band together and know where people are, it's just a shame.
The government's always wanted to interfere with others.
So I think that it's a very difficult thing to just say that it's going to be difficult.
Some people are going to have a much different approach if they live in a rural area.
Where I live, I grew up in a rural area.
And there there were gardens, people have art.
But I do remember the Depression and World War II.
And there were gardens, almost everybody had a little one.
We had a big one that helped take care of what's up.
But I think he might be thinking about: well, should young people buy gold and silver and have precious metal?
And if they can, hey, I almost accidentally got into doing that because we had some retail businesses.
Our dairy business was retail.
And I was a newspaper boy.
So I looked at every single coin and I started saving coins.
And then I learned that there were copper coins and silver coins and nickel coins and gold coins.
Find out quite a lot of owners.
So I got fascinated with the monetary issue.
So I think saving still with that is it depends on what their income is.
I think it's pretty hard for a young person without much money to go out and start buying gold coins because dollar-wise, things haven't adjusted.
But silver is a reasonable recruit to have something as a backup for having bad times.
But having skills, knowing where your friends are, understanding maybe how you should defend yourself.
There's a lot of things you could do if you happen to live in a rural area or find friends that live in our rural areas.
Because I do believe that there will be chaos and there will be a breakdown, but not next week or next month.
But at the rate we're doing, at the rate that debt is going up, it's very, very serious.
And the government hasn't withheld on their intrusion to our personal liberties.
And that to me is the biggest challenge.
So even now, and we've had so many young people help in our campaigns and what we do.
Because if a person has their freedom, I said if all their wealth was wiped out tomorrow, everybody, but you had your freedom, believe me, we would recover rather quickly.
Right now, though, that hasn't happened.
We still have way too much government.
So individuals that want to do it, you know, maybe they don't have something themselves they can do, but working with somebody that they trust, I think it's very, very important.
But I think thinking along these lines are very important, but it'll vary.
Everybody wants there.
Everybody's not going to think the same way.
Some people might have a different strategy, but I think paying attention to it, very important.
I have a follow-up to that, Dr. Paul.
I think I know that you're very modest.
You drive a Corolla, you know, the Toyota.
So I think one of the things in today's economy, especially with young people, is they want to buy everything, right?
They want to buy all the goods.
The sneakers cost $120.
And it's not necessarily something they need, but looking at social media and all these other kinds of stuff where they're just telling you buy, buy, buy.
Do you have any advice for young people to kind of save and also really be modest in their spending in today's modern world?
You know, I think there are two kinds of people that I've noticed over time that some are savers and some are spenders.
And it should be modified.
I think the saver sometimes can be miserly.
You know, and why was it so?
You can't be terrified, but that's a personal judgment.
They're going to have to, some people go out and, you know, have drinking parties and do another thing and wasting their money.
But you're going to have rules on that.
And the worst thing is to have the government making those rules on what you ought to be doing.
But there's a lot that can be done.
And I think that Steven caring and thinking about is very important.
And I believe that there's always ways to have protection.
But I still go back to the whole thing.
If you want to work in, and part of this is education, basically education, because if they want to study the economic policies that I've been talking about, you have to discover, and it's easier to discover it now because it's so much more prevailing.
And that is Austrian economic.
It was almost accidental that I came across it because it was mentioned at the Goldwater campaign.
And I found it fascinating and interesting.
I like to talk to people and try to learn from other people.
And one of the challenges that I've had over the years is to learn how to present your arguments because you have to say, you can't say, I'm against food standards, going to do bottlenecks without this.
And you might be against it in a free society.
You might not need it.
You have to prove to them that it isn't the answer.
But I think how to handle it, and I think studying is great, but meeting people who have experienced some of these details, I think is very helpful.
I think that's great advice, Dr. Paul.
Let's go on to the next question, which comes from Robbie Andrew.
And he asks, Are you worried about Trump's order of the National Guard troops to DC could be a precedent or possibly a test run for other cities and the entire country?
Yes, we should be concerned about that.
I think that's realistic.
But it isn't like it's identical.
You know, D.C., D.C. is different than all the other cities because it's a federal cities.
It's under fake conditions, but some of it is vague and different.
And they don't have their independence and they want to become a state and all these kinds of things.
So if there are riots and problems, it would be nice that the people there that are theoretically supposed to be in charge of the city would be looking for help.
And so I think, you know, the involvement of the federal government is very bad.
I don't happen to think we're at that point where we need to hold, you know, to militarize the whole city.
But I don't think it's illegitimate.
But let's say that, you know, the statistics massively improve and they temporarily make it look like much better cities.
And they use this as an example.
Well, look, we're going into all the other cities.
Just look at, because the bad cities are always in the states that have been run by liberals.
And DC has been run, you know, the local cells are run by liberals.
And that will invite people.
So I think we have to be very careful on what is done because if they're careless, even if they have a technical excuse or an explanation why they can go into DC, they may well just go and expand it because an interventionist that wants to deal with taking care of everything will use it.
And yes, I think it's a danger to that.
So when there's a latent violation of civil liberties under these conditions, the people who are hopes on trying to wash these abuses and on our civil liberties, they're very helpful and they should speak out.
Very good, Dr. Paul.
I'll go ahead and go to the next question, Which comes from U.S. debt.
If you report us, how would you reduce our national debt, Dr. Paul?
Well, that's tough.
That's again, the budget's on autopilot, and the people are autopilot to receive what they want, even though our numbers are growing.
I think we've made a lot of inroads.
But it's so bad.
The only way I can really understand and explain it to others is even if I'm the president and I veto everything, unless you have a Congress, it'll be every vetoes will be overridden.
And that doesn't solve our problem.
And sometimes you see back to ignorance.
The people say, you may, you wouldn't have the federal government doing ABC.
Doesn't the federal government have to help us on education?
Yeah, look at it.
Look at our education.
Don't they have to help in medicine?
Yeah, look at what they did with COVID.
They have to understand why they do that.
And see what you have that understanding.
See, the COVID didn't back, the COVID supporters didn't back off.
And the people woke up and said, this is atrocious.
It was so bad that they had to do that.
So the president can do things.
And matter of fact, it's something like if it's a federal program like involvement and medical care, it should be denied.
We shouldn't allow them to run our medical education.
They should be running the education system.
They shouldn't be bribing and threatening the colleges.
We give them money.
If they allow people to speak on campuses, our federal government doesn't lose.
Then they say, we're not going to get any more money.
So that's terrible.
But the problem isn't, well, what if they were saying terrible things, you know, at their meetings on the campuses?
Problem is, it should be dealt with by the college, but they shouldn't be getting any money.
And our presidents or our Congresses catch a strata.
You do it this way, we're going to take your money away.
You know, it's a threat to them.
And that is not the way to do it.
We should do it.
We should do it.
Article 1, Section A, and live by it.
Live by that part of the Constitution.
No authority to run a medical care.
There's no authority there to run our educational system.
And we'd be a lot better off.
And all I can say is I've worked to do that just like I do now.
But you have to be realistic that the problem is educational and getting people to agree.
And but if a president is leading the charge and participating in the education, you're understanding that that could be very helpful.
And I think that there's an important aspect of doing it.
And we need more of that.
But you can't think, I mean, if we could get one president, you know, a president, he says, I'm going to change this overnight.
It ain't going to work because the people haven't changed.
And we have seen what attempts this last six months have been.
Cutting the Military Industrial Complex00:09:20
Not a penny cut from our budget.
And there were some sear efforts, but there was not ours or the things that a president could do, which would be immediate.
The president's in charge of the military.
And no matter what the Congress says, they can't make the president and direct you say, okay, Mr. President, take your troops and do this.
And so that would be a big thing.
That would be a calming effect.
That would cut down spending.
He's helped the budget.
There would be a lot of help there.
So along with doing risk, that hopefully that would be easier than the social things like medical care and education.
That's harder politically.
But I would think that just think of the oop with the young people right now, even with a terrible war continuing the Middle East and Ukraine.
Young people, they're the ones who have to fight the wars and they're strongly anti-war.
So that is the one thing president could do to champion peace over war.
Very well said, Dr. Paul.
One of my favorite quotes by you is whenever someone asks, hey, do you feel the need to have a third party in the United States?
You say, I'm still waiting for a second party, right?
And the common denominator between Republicans and Democrats is the spending never stops, right?
The spending is always continuous, whether it's Biden's Build Back Better bill or Trump's big beautiful bill, the military-industrial complex and the war spending just continue.
Do you think that has an impact on the debt?
And do you think that we should reverse that?
I know you want to get out of all wars.
Do you think that that is possible for the United States right now?
I think the coalition building is very important.
I don't have much confidence that we're all of a sudden going to get Congress to vote the way I'd like to see them vote.
It's going to do, and this is going to end, but it's going to end with the bankruptcy, which we're already into.
And then all empires end that way.
And some people say, well, you know, I will say, they say, well, why don't we just work on it and cut back?
It's not going to work.
You can't get the support for cutting spending.
People are too dependent on it.
And they've been taught that they have a right to this.
They have a right to welfare.
And that is the neglect.
See, you'd like to correct this, but you can't correct in a week or two or even in one administration because it took 100 years of this nonsense to be preached to generations.
And these are the people that come out of these universities, they end up ambitious to go and live off the, you know, with a government job and promote the stuff going on.
But just look at that because of what was taught in the university, our judicial system.
You know, I claim there's been a coup.
Our security apparatus has been just taken over by the deep state.
And that's why we have so much of this arguing about who's going to go to jail and who's going to be punished.
I think that is horrible, the way that's been held, because if people want to just gang up, they want to get together.
The session with democracy is all we have to do is get the majority, get 25 groups together, say, well, we're going to vote for spending.
And they put pressure to pass that budget.
And because there's less respect for the Constitution, so our efforts ultimately will be saved when the Constitution is obeyed once again.
And, you know, the founders even talked about that when it was being asked.
We're giving you a republic.
We're not giving you a democracy.
And it depends on whether the next generation will maintain the honoring.
And we don't have a republic and we have an authoritarian government, and we call it, you know, the far authoritarians that want to do everything.
And the people who want no government, you know, they're on the ends, but everybody's an interventionist.
That is, whether they want this much government, this much government, but they all believe that the government should be intervening and for different reasons.
And they get together and they end up with neurodemocracy and they end up with deficit.
And it's very hard to crack because if you crack us, if you crack more than one, then they all gang on hang up on you.
That's essentially what happened here during these past six months.
I mean, the effort was had to sort of walk home in the summertime because they were getting nowhere, you know, with coming up with a budget.
And that's the way it is.
It's a bankruptcy and they're not admitting it.
Yeah, it's a financial bankruptcy, but it's also a moral bankruptcy.
Very well said, Dr. Paul.
The last question comes from me.
And my question is: we're seeing inflation being felt all over the country from grocery prices to the energy sector.
And then we're looking at the television, watching the wars in Ukraine and in Palestine with Israel.
I just want to know what, how do you think this affects U.S. foreign policy as far as being like, do you think Americans are sound right now?
Are they happy with where the economy is and how that affects our foreign policy looking outward?
Well, ultimately, the source of the answer because spending, getting empower keeps going and the temptation to throw their weight around and expand the empire because we literally are 150 countries.
And even conservatives like Bush ran on interventionist foreign policy.
We're not the policemen of the world because the people want that, but they're not quite willing to give it up.
But it'll end.
The foreign policy aggressiveness will end when it'll end when we run out of money and we're running out of money.
And I've always argued if we did have a group that would be willing to work and cut the budget systematically that you don't work on food stamps for children as a starter for working in that direction.
You work on these wars.
You work on the special interest, the military-industrial conflict, the pharmaceutical industry, and on and on and explain why they should be the doctor.
They should be practicing medicine and why they should be running our universities and own the universities because universities have to do exactly as their government wants.
And they are limited in their speech because the government will take their money away.
We have to get that all out of there.
And that would make a big difference.
And I think that the military-industrial conflict is the place to go.
I mean, it's huge.
Just think of, just think of the F-35.
They did done that for 22 years, I think.
It's just unbelievable of that boondoggle.
And I think they're getting $12 million this year to continue.
But it just makes no sense at all.
And that stuff has to be finally adapted.
I believe if we can get a majority of the people to just push us in that direction, you could do it.
What are the odds of that happening?
That we're going to start nibbling away and shrinking the military-industrial conflict, then you would be accused of being Unpatriotic and supporting the enemy and all that.
But I still think it's the best place to go because you can't start with the people who are already made indigent by government policy and say, well, we can't take care of these people.
That would work.
It could work, but unfortunately, it's not going to.
So we will have the bankruptcy.
And that's why some of these other things that we talked about, you know, the education, the understanding about Austrian economics, the understanding of war and peace, and the understanding of all the civil liberty principles, all these things, you know, are important won't change.
But I think the movement to understand, this is where I'm optimistic about the various organizations because I work with a lot of organizations.
I think there's a lot of people out there that agree with it.
Message of Liberty Encouraged00:01:31
I think our internet access is very helpful.
There's a lot of nonsense on the internet.
But I never dreamed of a day when I started off just as a hobby to talk about Austrian economics back in the 60s that I could reach a couple thousand people today or many thousands of people.
It's unbelievable.
I think there's a lot of people out there just waiting for the chance to bring everybody together.
And it better, the organization continues because the climatic end to this is fast approaching.
We ought to be ready.
We should be doing that.
And we don't have to be down in the dumps about it and looking at how mad it could be because we don't have total control.
And I think that there's a bit of enjoyment meeting and knowing other people that agree with this because I think it's, you know, when I first went to Congress, you know, some of the things I talked about, they say, what are you doing?
You voted with that liberal Democrat.
What's going on?
I think the young people really were attractive to the message of liberty.
And that's what encouraged me.
And that is why we've continued to fight this fight.
That's all I have for you, Dr. Paul.
Please like and subscribe, and I'll let you close off the program.
Very good.
I want to thank all our viewers for tuning in today.