

During his Presidential campaign in 1980, Ronald Reagan posed the pivotal question of the time, "Are you better off than than you were four years ago?"





In 2012, the question has changed to "Is America better off than it was 40 years ago?" The answer to this question is decidedly no for America, and especially no for Florida's Space Coast.





There has been much talk by the candidates about American exceptionalism. But no candidate, except for Ron Paul, addresses the monetary and liberty issues from which that exceptionalism arose.





When Republican President Dwight Eisenhower signed the 1958 Space Act and Democratic President John F. Kennedy challenged the U.S.A. to put a man on the moon, both administrations presided over a gold standard monetary policy.





The height of American optimism and futurism, embodied by the 1964 New York World's Fair song 'There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow' and pinnacled by the 1969 Apollo Moon landing, did and could only occur when the U.S. dollar was as good as gold and the U.S. economy was not shackled by the ever expanding corporate and social welfare state that exists today.





MONETARY POLICY:





Ever since Richard Nixon took the U.S. dollar off the gold standard in 1971, America has suffered volatile economic swings caused by inflation. The Federal Reserve's ability to dictate the value of the dollar presents an enormous headwind to business in the form of production cost uncertainty and steals wealth from ordinary Americans' investments and savings.





Ron Paul is the only candidate willing to end this scheme where Florida fixed income seniors suffer the most due to increased food and energy costs while not being able to earn a sufficient return on their investments to keep up with the cost of living because the Federal Reserve artificially keeps interest rates low while at the same time devaluing the dollar.





ECONOMIC LIBERTY:





Whether it is corporate tax carve outs to special interests by establishment Republicans or tax dollar stimulus handouts to corporations by establishment Democrats - one thing is clear to American businesses: The United States of America is no longer a free market economy.





In addition to taxation inequality, regulations for political purposes are created to benefit one industry over another such as SOPA which would have benefited Hollywood over the High-Tech industry. Additional regulations become even narrower benefiting one class of businesses over the other within the same industry.





With the uncertainty of the value of a dollar, combined with tax and regulation inequality, the American entrepreneurial spirit has been crushed. What business person in their right mind would want to invest their time, money and energy into a great idea that could be squashed at a political whim through changes to monetary valuation, taxation, or regulation?





Ron Paul is the only candidate who would fight to bring back a true free market economy to the United States. American optimism and futurism, which ultimately leads to exceptionalism, still exists - it is only being suppressed by the political machines that infect the establishment of both political parties. Not since the Great Depression has there been so much energy and ingenuity of the American people bottled up just yearning to breathe free.





Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich both have a record of supporting crony capitalism. Both candidates supported the bank bailouts. Newt Gingrich's payments from Freddie Mac during the time of a government rigged housing market enriched the former Speaker at the expense of all Floridians. Mitt Romney even suggested in the Jacksonville Presidential Debate that he would place former U.S. Senator Mel Martinez in his cabinet. As reported by Brevard Times, Martinez received his payoff from the banks in exchange for his TARP vote with a plush job from Chase even though Martinez never had any banking experience.





Adding insult to injury, Romney has brought on Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to the Romney team. Pam Bondi pushed for a pro-bank settlement in a lawsuit against the banks for the fraud they committed against Floridians and the American people which was rejected by Attorney Generals of other states as being too lenient on the banks.





STAND OUT CANDIDATE:





Texas Congressman Ron Paul stands out in many respects from the other candidates.





Paul is the only Presidential candidate with military service who served his country as a U.S. Air Force flight surgeon from 1963 to 1968. Romney avoided the draft with controversial Mormon deferments at the expense of draftees of other faiths. Gingrich boded his time in college and graduate school during the Vietnam Era. Rick Santorum was too young to serve in Vietnam. Given the large number of veterans in Florida, there is a good chance that the men who took Romney and Gingrich's places during the Vietnam War are either living or buried here in Florida. The last time a Republican candidate without military service became President of the United States was Herbert Hoover whose term included the Wall Street crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression.





As a medical doctor, Ron Paul is the only candidate who actually worked with his hands in the private sector. Dr. Paul personally understands the patient-doctor relationship. Paul's combined military and health care careers makes him more like the voters in Florida than any other candidate.





Paul understands the economics that government and government-mandated insurance is nothing more than an unnecessary leach upon the U.S. health care system that ultimately drives up costs for patients and skims revenue from the labor of health care professionals. Cutting out the needless middleman from health care would ultimately bring down health care costs for all Americans. It was indisputable by Romney in the last Florida debate that Romneycare, like Obamacare, fines Americans who choose not to purchase health insurance.





Paul is the only candidate who has virtually zero contributions from lobbyists. Instead, he relies on small donations from thousands of donors rather than million dollar donations from a handful of donors. Brevard County residents have donated more to the Ron Paul campaign than any other GOP candidate.





Paul is the only unwavering candidate. His political positions now are the same as they were thirty years ago. He is the only candidate that Americans can truly believe will carry out what he says on the campaign trail. Ron Paul is the real life Mr. Smith Goes To Washington.





Ron Paul could have jumped on the corrupt Washington gravy train long ago. But Paul stands up against Washington legislation with the humble courage and selfless conviction to say that this is not in the U.S. Constitution much the same way as Martin Luther stood against the Catholic Church to say the selling of indulgences are not in the Bible.





There is one more thing that can be said about Ron Paul that can not be said of any other candidate. If you want to know how Paul feels about a particular issue, you do not have to go to his campaign website or research newspaper articles. Instead, you only have to read a copy of The U.S. Constitution.









FUTURE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY:





If the Republican Party nominates a draft-avoiding, crony-capitalist, anti-gun, pro-choice, socialized-medicine candidate over a strict free-market Constitutionalist who served his country and carries our his political office with integrity, then the Republican party might as well change its symbol from an elephant to a woolly-mammoth now because that party will become extinct.





If instead the Republican Party and America sheds corrupt Washington politics by electing Ron Paul to the Presidency of the United States, there could once again be a 'Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow.'





Brevard Times is pleased to join the Independent Florida Alligator in its endorsement of Ron Paul for the Republican Presidential Nominee.





Suggested Reading/Viewing before voting on January 31st:





Mr. Smith Goes To Washington

Video: http://video.google.com/ videoplay?docid=- 897129633961255565





Martin Luther: Driven to Defiance

The U.S. Consitution



'There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow' sung by Walt Disney and the Sherman Brothers: