www.JoeCobb.com

If Ron Paul gets the GOP nomination, I will support him for POTUS. If he doesn’t get the GOP nomination, the LP will still need a candidate. I was part of a team that would like to offer the LP nomination to Ron Paul, but he has already refused it. So, in the alternative: Kubby wants to use my economic program

(i) repeal the 16th Amendment (income tax) and
(ii) stop using “imaginary numbers” in government budgeting.
(iii) cut government programs in a tri-bi-partisan way in Congress, with supplemental appropriations and continuting resolutions only after Congressional oversight committee hearings, to review government inefficiency and get rid of waste.
Less-than-full-year appropriations: Continuing Resolutions can become a budgeting tool to cut spending. Kubby supports this idea, to use a “look back” method to determine how much each government program should be INCREASED (adjusted for inflation and/or cut in real terms) annually.
Negative COLA: If a program is not supplemented by new appropriations, it will be cut in real terms; the appropriated dollars buy less - and those programs just have to continue getting the same number of shrinking dollars. [ shed a tear ]

So, I support Steve Kubby’s effort to promote my budget-theory ideas - to use a Gandhi/passive resistance-with-veto technique to cut spending (in real terms).

Back in 1982-84, I am proud to tell you that I worked for Ron Paul, as his staff aide on the Banking Committee. Ron Paul introduced the bill I wrote to begin minting U.S. gold bullion coins, and it did become Public Law 99-185. Ron Paul has become famous for my work on gold coinage, and it makes me happy.

I hope Steve Kubby can become famous for my work on government budget systems, too. Mountains can be moved if you let others take credit for the miracle. Isn’t there a quote about Muhammad and a mountain?
_________________________
Regards, Joe Cobb
Glendale, Arizona
www.JoeCobb.com
.

The Economic Issues are Hot Today

I have decided to sign on to the Steve Kubby for President candidacy, for the Libertarian Party nomination. I know Steve personally, and I plan to work very hard for his success in getting the LP nomination in Denver, Memorial Day weekend. He will get on the ballot in at least 2/3 of the USA, and if we do as well as in years past, we can be on the ballot in 49-50 states.

Steve Kubby plans to emphasize the economic issues. I am an economist, so I have agreed to become his central advisor in that role. For an introduction to the tax and budget ideas, you can check out my own web site, www.JoeCobb.com, but Steve Kubby’s personal views are for him to tell you as the election campaign moves forward.

Here are two of my own ideas about abolishing the income tax and cutting government spending. If my own ideas are helpful in summarizing what Kubby would do in the first year after Jan.21, 2009, having won election to the Presidency of the United States, enjoy my speculative fiction.

Speculative Fiction

(1) First, Kubby tells America and the world that we will stop “forecasting” revenue and expenditure numbers in the government’s budget. “Imaginary numbers” are what have caused the current crisis, as the politicians try to predict the future and pass laws spending money that will never be collected. (See “Why Do We Need a Government Budget?” on this site.)

(2) Second, Kubby tells America and the world that we will stop attempting to collect the Federal income tax, until such time as the Congress approves a resolution to repeal the 16th Amendment. The income tax is ruining America and it must go! (See my book on this site.)

(3) Third, Kubby tells America and the world that we will balance the Federal budget by cutting spending, but the Congress in 2009 will choose what programs to cut.

Kubby will promise NOT to write up a budget during his first 100 days in office, because that would be a serious time to work with Congress and study what must be done to save the American economy and to cut the size and power of the Federal government.

This is a very significant change

This is a very significant change, perhaps the most important detail in the Kubby program. The Federal government’s budgetary process is broken and must be changed. This how we purge the forecasted revenues (”imaginary numbers”) out of the budgetary system and use actual tax collections as our basis for planning expenditures.

Nobody can predict the future, and government budgets are importantly different from private budgets, which are useful planning tools. Government budgets are a relic from the old infatuation about government central economic planning, an idea that should have died with the old Soviet Union.

Kubby will use Congressional “continuing resolutions” to pay for government programs and to force Congress to cut spending.

See this reference to understand more about the “continuing resolution” method, by which Congress evades the deadlines to pass annual appropriations bills. Lazy Congress. Should do more “oversight” work and less earmarking. Wikipedia: Continuing Resolution [ link here ]

(4) Fourth, Kubby welcomes your own comments. You can use the comments sections on my own web site to publish your ideas. Thanks for stepping into the arena.

Ron Paul announced his candidacy for POTUS this morning. I support him.

Here are some comments my email received today:

Linda wrote: “Ron Paul makes me nervous in some ways—Washington rumor mill stuff in large part, but some of it has some credence. Then again, most of them make me nervous. Obama is the most interesting new face in the race IMHO—notice I said interesting. I reserve further opinion until after I’ve finished his book. Has Paul written any autobiographical books or other books on how he thinks politically?”

Joe would reply: Ron Paul has written a lot of books and articles.

This list is from Gene:

Ron Paul has written a couple of booklets, mostly about the Gold Standard. Everyone who is backing him is doing so because of his record in Congress:
(a) Voted against the Patriot Act (along with 2 other Republican Congressmen, 75 Dems & 1 Independent)
(b) Voted against authorizing the Iraq War (along with 5 other Republican Congressman, 132 Dems & 1 Independent)
(c) Always votes for tax cuts, votes against most spending bills
(d) Votes against military spending, opposes conscription
(e) Sponsor of the Liberty Amdendment to abolish the income tax
(f) Lead sponsor of Industrial Hemp bill
(g) Co-Sponsor of bill to stop federal government from interfering in states that have passed medical marijuana.

His many columns on various issues can be accessed here:
(A) Anti-war columns
(B) Columns on other issues

He is a life member of The Libertarian Party. Texas does not have party registration, so he is not even a registered Republican.

On two issues at least, he takes stands that I disagree with:
He voted for the Wall at the US/Mexico border. He opposes abortion.

He is also a Christian, and more comfortable with religious displays in the public square than I am.

He is the most ideologically transparent candidate in history. Much of what he has written, of course, has been ghost written. I was a ghost writer for some of his stuff on the gold standard back in the 1980s. But Ron Paul is a clear thinker. He learns from ghost writers like me. It is like being his college professor for one semester. But the teacher writes the paper, and signs the student’s name.

Frank Luntz, in his new book, Words that Work (2007), points out it is most important for the political leader “to be” the message. Ron Paul does that very well.