Ron Paul's Policies Would Put Many Americans in Peonage (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | Ron Paul's policies would turn back the clock to the days before Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, resulting in the destruction of the middle class as we know it. My parents grew up in the kind of society that Paul advocates. There was a small middle class of professionals and small business owners.

Farmers were considered middle class as they did not work for wages and owned their land, but many were heavily mortgaged and a good deal were poor. In the 1930s, working people were lowly paid wage slaves, lucky to have jobs.

Peonage was legal until finally outlawed in 1945 by a Supreme Court dominated by justices picked by FDR, who created the modern middle class, which was midwived by Harry Truman. The G.I. Bill provided education and home loans, and veterans were given a weekly stipend of $20 for one year. This program was called the 52/20 Club.

At a rally in Nashua, N.H., Ron Paul claimed military cut backs would lead to an economic boom, saying World War II ended the Great Depression. The troops came home and their spending power ended the depression.

It was one of the most stunning displays of ignorance I've ever heard. It was World War II that ended the Depression, when U.S. industry, under federal direction, shifted the economy to war production. When the troops returned in 1945 after war production ended, they suffered through the worst recession of the past 65 years. The 52/20 Club was created because of high unemployment.

What is particularly appalling is Paul is a Texan. FDR (with the help later of Lyndon Johnson) brought electricity to Texas, improving the quality of life. Without FDR, LBJ, the "big government" Democratic Party and the largesse of the federal government -- all the pork Texas has devoured from the federal trough, including earmarks a hypocritical Paul puts in each spending bill, knowing the bill will get passed despite his voting against it) -- Texas would be mired in poverty.

As a 76-year-old Texan born into the Depression who experienced the positive changes brought to the Lone Star State by the federal government, Paul should know better. That he does not reminds one of the observation of Prince Hal made of Falstaff: "How ill white hairs become a fool and jester."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/oped/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20120109/cm_ac/10805407_ron_pauls_policies_would_put_many_americans_in_peonage

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