What Can Rand Paul Accomplish by Cozying Up to Mitt Romney

Mark Skousen in an interview thinks Rand Paul can accomplish a lot. He defends Rand and his decision  "to stay within the Republican Party to achieve real success in government". His defense actually points out the problems of trying to stay "within the system' in a Mitt Romney administration. Skousen says:

Senator Rand Paul is a brilliant politician and has already gone farther politically than his father. He's made the decision, a wise one in my judgment, to stay within the Republican Party to achieve real success in government. That means endorsing the compromise candidate. His father, Ron Paul, set the stage by maintaining a strict dogma. Senator Paul will have to compromise to achieve success, but I think half success is better than no success at all. He may not banish the income tax but he will push for a flat tax. He may not eliminate the Fed but he will make it more accountable and less inflationary. He may not bring all our troops home from around the world but he will cut the military budget and minimize the blowback damage of the past. He may not end the TSA but he will help privatize it.

Calling Romney a "compromise" candidate is absurd. The man is more of a bankster tool than Obama. His inclinations toward war appear greater than Obama's. He has called Russia the number one enemy, which means he must be clueless about foreign policy. That Sheldon Adelson is pumping multi-millions into his campaign suggests that the last thing that the U.S. will be in a Romney administration is evenhanded in the Middle East.

I tried yesterday to put together compromise demands that Rand could have asked for in return for an endorsement of Romney, as opposed to Rand selling out on the Fed and foreign policy, but I gave up after a full day of thinking about it. Romney is so much a statist tool that I realized, on any significant issue, there would be no chance Romney would go along on compromise. Romney isn't going to mess with the Fed. Romney isn't going to pull back on  the foreign adventures of the U.S. empire. There is simply nothing of importance that Rand could get from the monster Romney that would advance liberty.

Going from the current income tax to a flat tax, which Skousen cheers on,  is not an advancement in liberty. Murray Rothbard explained the deviousness of the flat tax:

The flat tax has been cleverly labeled a tax “reform,” the very word “reform” being heavy with the implication that no man or woman of good will, be they liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, can possibly stand opposed to such a plan. My favorite writer, H. L. Mencken, once wrote that he had learned at his father’s knee in Baltimore what “reform” in politics really meant: “mainly a conspiracy of prehensile charlatans to mulct the taxpayer.”...

 the seductive rhetoric invoking the “special interests” has lead most people to believe that everyone will benefit from the flat tax except a few wicked corporations or multi-millionaires. Nothing could be further from the truth. If the flat tax is enacted, millions of us will find out, too late and to our chagrin, that, to paraphrase Pogo: “We have met the special interests and they are us.” Or as Senator Robert Dole (R-KS) put it recently on the issue of the flat tax as an allegedly fair tax: “Everybody believes in fairness unless they’re involved.”...

 The flat tax, quite simply, proposes that every individual and every organization be subjected to the same, uniform proportional income tax. To achieve that uniformity, the flattaxers propose the ruthless suppression of all  credits, deductions, exemptions, and shelters, all of which are sneered at as “loopholes” in the tax system. In the flat-taxers’ pure theory, the proportional income tax would apply to everyone regardless of income...

Hence, any failure of government to confiscate everyone’s property up to that amount is somehow a moral blot that needs to be rectified. But to me it is far from self-evident that the government, rather than we ourselves, should have the primary right to our own earnings. The “closing of loopholes” under a flat tax will mean a merciless and continuing search-and-destroy mission by which the government will root out and obliterate every little hideyhole in which many of us have been able to squirrel away a bit of our own earnings and our own property, and keep them safe from the ever-expanding maw of the federal government...

All I know is that, as a taxpayer, I would like my taxes to be as low as possible. I suggest, then, that we cease the impossible quest for fairness in taxation, and try to arrive at taxes as low as possible. For whom? For everyone.

Skousen says Rand:

   may not eliminate the Fed but he will make it more accountable and less inflationary

Just what the hell does Skousen mean, make the Fed "less inflationary"? If the Fed slows money printing, the malinvestments will crash. Does Skousen seriously think that Rand is going to have more influence than the banksters and stop the Fed from bailing out the banksters? Skousen admits that Rand will not be able to end the Fed. Does Skousen think Rand won't be able to do this because the banksters admire the historical architecture of the Fed buildings? The only reason Rand won't be able to defeat the banksters on ending the Fed is because the banksters want the Fed as the instrument by which interest rates are manipulated and money is printed!

And just how is Rand going to shrink the military budget, when Romney wants to expand it!? Rand's going to privatize the TSA? Puhleeze, that scam has already been discussed and rejected by Ron Paul.

Bottom line: Mitt Romney is one major league big government dude, where it is impossible to reach compromise of any significance on any important point. On nothing. Nada. Romney is like a political black hole, he sucks you in, you don't pull anything out. Rand Paul and Skousen are being sucked in.