Why Drivers Support Ron Paul

Truck drivers are all about freedom: the freedom of the road, the freedom of being paid for performance, and the freedom that we enjoy as Americans.  

 

Because of this love of freedom inherent in every one of us, we drivers naturally gravitate towards candidates who promote and believe in freedom.   

 

Rather than giving lip service to political catch phrases like "democracy" and "liberty" and so forth, Dr. Ron Paul has actively fought for those things (and more) as a seated member of Congress.  He has consistently shown how highly he values true freedom, real liberty, and the upholding of the Constitution of the United States of America.  

 

That's why driver's support Ron Paul! 

 

Ron Paul on Trucker's Issues (our questions, followed by Ron Paul's answers in italics)

Question 1: Although it has been put on hold, Mexican trucks are slated to begin operations in the U.S. under the NAFTA agreement. What are your views on this?

 

Rather than securing our borders, we seem to be providing more pores for illegal aliens, drug dealers, and terrorists to permeate.  

 

Not only that, but the anti-competitive and burdensome yoke of over-regulation of our industry at home is about to send a lot more Americans to the unemployment lines. The American Trucking industry has been heavily regulated since 1935.   The express purpose of The Motor Carrier Act was to eliminate competition through permitting, regulating tariff rates, even approving routes.  American trucking companies have been fighting ever since for some relief from the substantial regulatory burdens placed on them.   Regulatory compliance is the single most daunting barrier to entry, and eats up huge amounts of profit.   Now, to add insult to injury, Mexican trucking companies, not subject to the same onerous standards, will be allowed to roll right in and squeeze American industry further.   This will severely undermine the ability of American trucking companies to remain solvent.

 

The fact that this is being done in the name of free trade is disturbing.   Free trade is not complicated, yet NAFTA and CAFTA are comprised of thousands of pages of complicated legal jargon.   All free trade really needs is two words: Low tariffs.   Free trade does not require coordination with another government to benefit citizens here.  Just like domestic businesses don't pay taxes, foreign businesses do not pay tariffs – consumers do, in the form of higher prices.   If foreign governments want to hurt their own citizens with protectionist tariffs, let them.  But let us set a good example here, and show the world an honest example of true free trade.   And let us stop hurting American workers with mountains of red tape in the name of safety.  Safety standards should be set privately, by the industry and by the insurance companies who have the correct motivating factors to do so.

 

Supporters of the amnesty bill like to claim that border protection is their first priority.  But if enforcement of our borders is the highest priority, certainly a much shorter bill could have been written.  Even better, why not enforce existing laws?  According to our Constitution, Congress makes the laws that the executive branch is to enforce.  The rush to pass this new law seems to obfuscate this simple fact.  There are plenty of laws already in place, so it seems sensible to largely solve this problem without new laws.

To make matters worse, as I wrote in a recent column, some 120 of our best trained border guards are going to be sent to Iraq to help them with border enforcement!  In addition, National Guard troops participating in Operation Jump Start on the Mexican border are scheduled to also be sent to Iraq and Afghanistan .

This legislation purports to crack down hard at our borders, but as we have learned time and time again, you cannot address enforcement until you address incentives.  That is why you cannot have border security with an amnesty program in place: the incentive of amnesty undermines any crack-down on border protection and in fact just makes work for our Border Patrol all the more difficult.  Incentives in place to those who would come to the United States illegally will remain in place if this legislation is passed.  Illegal immigrants will still receive federal assistance and free medical care and their children will still gain automatic citizenship after this bill is passed.  We need to face the fact that securing our borders means more than legislation, or fences, or even more Border Patrol.  It means removing incentives for people to come to the US illegally in the first place.

 

 

Thanks to the Ron Paul Library (http://www.ronpaullibrary.org) for their help in finding answers to many of our questions.    

 

If you have further questions you'd like submitted to Dr. Paul, we are always open to your suggestions.  You may use the form at the bottom of this page to ask your question or you can email us directly with them.  If you include your contact information, we will get back to you as quickly as possible.  Thanks for your input!