Ron Paul: The Cut Man

Ron Paul might not be talked about as a potential candidate for President, but he definitely has an important role as far as the conversation goes. No politician pushes small government and individual liberty like Ron Paul. He was on the forefront of the Tea Party movement, an epiphany that has had GOP candidates trying to find ways to appeal to this new segment of their electorate. Today, Ron Paul has pledged to drop a bomb on spending with $1 trillion in spending cuts:

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul on Monday unveiled a plan to cut $1 trillion from the federal budget within one year by eliminating a handful of federal departments, including the Energy and Education departments.

He's the only one to propose a balanced budget:

"Ron Paul's plan is the only one that seriously addresses the economic and budgetary problems our nation faces," Jesse Benton, Paul's campaign chairman and a co-author of the plan, said in a statement. "It's the only plan offered by a presidential candidate that actually balances the budget and begins to pay down the debt."

I don't expect any other candidate to propose as drastic a change in government spending. Unfortunately, I don't expect him to get the attention he should get for this, at least in pushing the conversation forward in regards to spending cuts. I have no doubt that Paul would encourage positive discussion to getting the country back on track as far as the budget is concerned:

"The other candidates have not offered this," Paul said of his plan. "I don't believe they think it's very serious. They think they can just tinker around the edges, but the American people are ready for some honest thinking and some honest reforms ...

"Everything that's not explicitly in the Constitution should be up for grabs, and we should be able to cut it," Paul said.

The gauntlet has been thrown down.

As far as the viability of this proposal, I don't believe that he could make such drastic cuts. However, the extent of his cuts should push others to give more stringent proposals to cut spending. One of my main concerns is that he won't get enough airtime to actually make an impact. Clearly though, no one else is taking cutting government spending as seriously as Ron Paul.