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Ronald Ernest "Ron" Paul (born August 20, 1935) is an American medical doctor, author, Republican U.S. Congressman of the House of Representatives and candidate for the 2012 Republican Party presidential nomination. Paul is currently the U.S. Congressman for the 14th congressional district of Texas, which comprises the area south and southwest of the Greater Houston region, including Galveston. Paul serves on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Joint Economic Committee, and the House Committee on Financial Services, and is Chairman of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology, where he has been an outspoken critic of current American foreign and monetary policy.
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"Paul has been termed the 'Intellectual
Godfather' of the Tea Party movement"
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Paul is the initiator of the advocacy group Campaign for Liberty and his ideas have been expressed in numerous published articles and books, including Liberty Defined: 50 Essential Issues That Affect Our Freedom (2011), End The Fed (2009), The Revolution: A Manifesto (2008), Pillars of Prosperity (2008), A Foreign Policy of Freedom: Peace, Commerce, and Honest Friendship (2007), and The Case for Gold (1982). According to University of Georgia political scientist Keith Poole, Paul had the most conservative voting record of any member of Congress since 1937.[2] His son Rand Paul was elected to the United States Senate for Kentucky in 2010, making the elder Paul the first Representative in history to serve concurrently with a child of his in the Senate.
Paul has been termed the "intellectual godfather" of the Tea Party movement. He has become well-known for his libertarian ideas for many political issues, often differing from both Republican and Democratic Party stances. Paul has campaigned for President of the United States twice before, first during 1988 as the nominee of the Libertarian Party and again during 2008 as a candidate for the Republican nomination. On May 13, 2011, he announced formally that he would campaign again during 2012 for the Republican presidential nomination. On July 12, 2011, Paul announced that he would not seek another term in Congress in order to concentrate on his presidential bid.
EARLY LIFE
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"As a medical doctor, Ron Paul
routinely lowered fees or worked
for free in order to refuse to accept
Medicaid or Medicare payments"
routinely lowered fees or worked
for free in order to refuse to accept
Medicaid or Medicare payments"
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During 1968, Paul and his wife relocated to Texas, where he continued his medical work. Trained in obstetrics and gynecology, Paul then began his own private practice.
Paul has been married to Carol Wells since 1957. They have five children, who were baptized Episcopalian: Ronald, Lori, Rand, Robert, and Joy. Paul's son Rand is the junior senator from the state of Kentucky. Raised a Lutheran, Paul later became a Baptist.
As a medical doctor, Ron Paul routinely lowered fees or worked for free in order to refuse to accept Medicaid or Medicare payments. As a member of Congress, he continues to refuse to sign up for the government pension that he would be entitled to in order to avoid receiving government money, saying it would be "hypocritical and immoral."
FIRST CAMPAIGNS
Inspired by his belief that the monetary crisis of the 1970s was predicted by the Austrian School and caused by excessive government spending on the Vietnam War and welfare, Paul became a delegate to the Texas Republican convention and a Republican candidate for the United States Congress. During 1974, incumbent Robert R. Casey defeated him for the 22nd district. When President Gerald Ford appointed Casey to direct the Federal Maritime Commission, Paul won an April 1976 special election to the vacant office. Paul lost some months later in the general election, to Democrat Robert Gammage, by fewer than 300 votes (0.2%), but defeated Gammage in a 1978 rematch, and was reelected during 1980 and 1982.
Paul was the first Republican representative from the area; he also headed the Texas Reagan delegation at the national Republican convention. His successful campaign against Gammage surprised local Democrats, who had expected to retain the seat easily due to the Watergate scandal. Gammage underestimated Paul's popularity among local mothers: "I had real difficulty down in Brazoria County, where he practiced, because he'd delivered half the babies in the county. There were only two obstetricians in the county, and the other one was his partner."
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Paul proposed term-limit legislation multiple times, at first during the 1970s in the House of Representatives where he also declined to attend junkets or register for a Congressional pension while serving four terms. His chief of staff (1978–1982) was Lew Rockwell. During 1980, when a majority of Republicans favored President Jimmy Carter's proposal to reinstate draft registration, Paul argued that their views were inconsistent, stating they were more interested in registering their children than they were their guns. He also proposed legislation to decrease Congressional pay by the rate of inflation; he was a regular participant of the annual Congressional Baseball Game; and he continued to deliver babies on Mondays and Saturdays during his entire 22nd district career.
On the House Banking Committee, Paul blamed the Federal Reserve for inflation, and spoke against the banking mismanagement that resulted in the savings and loan crisis. The U.S. Gold Commission created by Congress during 1982 was his and Jesse Helms's idea, and Paul's commission minority report was published by the Cato Institute in The Case for Gold; it is now available from the Ludwig von Mises Institute, to which Paul is a distinguished counselor.
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"(Ron Paul) continued to deliver babies
on Mondays and Saturdays during
his entire 22nd district career"
on Mondays and Saturdays during
his entire 22nd district career"
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During 1984, Paul chose to campaign for the U.S. Senate instead of re-election to the House, but lost the Republican primary to Phil Gramm, who had switched parties the previous year from Democrat to Republican. Another candidate of the senatorial primary was Henry Grover, a conservative former state legislator who had lost the 1972 gubernatorial general election to the Democrat Dolph Briscoe, Jr. Paul then resumed his full-time medical practice and was succeeded by former state representative Tom DeLay. In his House farewell address, Paul said, "Special interests have replaced the concern that the Founders had for general welfare. Vote trading is seen as good politics. The errand-boy mentality is ordinary, the defender of liberty is seen as bizarre. It's difficult for one who loves true liberty and utterly detests the power of the state to come to Washington for a period of time and not leave a true cynic."
During 2009, Paul was featured by CBS on Up to the Minute as one of two members of the U.S. Congress that have pledged not to receive a pension from the United States government. The other is Howard Cobleof North Carolina.
