Other cabinet departments? Department of Agriculture, Commerce, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development. You'd get rid of all of them?
Yeah. Of course, that's not on the immediate agenda, but they're unnecessary, and we should think about what kind of a country we would have without these departments, and I think we would have a better country, and all those problems that they're supposed to solve, I think, would be lessened.
The Commerce Department? We don't need the Commerce Department to have commerce?
No, absolutely not.
Homeland Security. Isn't that a role for the federal government?
Not really, not the way that's designed. That's the biggest bureaucracy of them all. There are some parts that are OK. You know, they put the Coast Guard in there, and they put FEMA in there, and everybody's bunched together. And I think it was failure of government on 9/11, not the fact that we didn't have the Department of Homeland Security and a national ID card, and this constant surveillance and loss of our privacy.
Failure of government how?
We spent $40 billion on intelligence gathering, and it didn't prevent (the 9/11 attacks) from happening. But the government was in charge of the airlines. FAA, they were supposed to inspect the people as they went on, and you weren't supposed to resist any takeovers, and (passengers and pilots) weren't allowed to have a gun. Maybe if you and I had the airlines, we might have said, "Hey, you know, we want to protect our passengers. Maybe we should have a stronger door on there, maybe we ought to give our pilots a gun." So 9/11 wouldn't have happened.
So government creates too many rules, and the wrong ones?
That basically it. Most of the time well-intentioned -- but good intentions will not solve our problems.
Here are a few clips of the interview:
Rep. Paul on drugs, prostitution, and gay marriage.
Rep. Paul on the necessary role of government.
Rep. Paul on foreign policy and the war in Iraq.
Rep. Paul on immigration.
Next week, Rep. Ron Paul talks about the war in Iraq.
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