Tuesday, October 18, 2011

What Would Ron Paul's Plan Mean To Black America?

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul has released an 11-page "Plan To Restore America" that is full of budget cuts and spending freezes. Here is a 7-point summary of the plan:

1) Cuts $1 trillion in one year and more in following years through attrition.
2) Reduces other funding to 2006 levels.
3) Eliminates 5 cabinet secretaries (Energy, HUD, Commerce, Interior, and Education).
4) Block grants Welfare Programs to remove federal strings and let states work out their best solutions.
5) Eliminates subsidies and Corporate Welfare.
6) Slashes perks and salaries for congressman and Bureaucrats. President Paul will take a salary of around $39,000 per year, the median salary for an American worker.
7) The corporate tax rate would fall to 15% from the current 35%.

One thing is sure, Prince George's County, Maryland would be devastated.  It is the richest majority Black county in the United States because of those six-figure government jobs.  Paul would kill thousands of those jobs by closing 5 cabinet agencies and reducing the budgets of other agencies. 

Some of his other ideas might help Black America.  Cutting corporate tax rates would be beneficial.  Cutting the president's salary would be a symbolic gesture, however, when proposals such as this (along with getting rid of Air Force One and First Helicopter fleet) are proposed when there is the first black president, it can be perceived as being a bit biased.

Eliminating corporate welfare would be beneficial to everybody in America, including Black America. 

Paul wants to sell federal assets and federal lands.  This could be a major benefit to Black America because it could provide access, ownership and development of natural resources.

Paul keeps the Environmental Protection Agency but cuts the budget from $10 to $5.8 billion.  EPA should be able to get by with this amount, particularly when compared to the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Department of the Interior, which he eliminates.  Black America benefits from DOE's Weatherization and other conservation programs, but the largest parts of the agency's budget goes to other activities, such as nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons facilities cleanup.  Not much of that money going to blacks.  The same can be said of the Department of the Interior (DOI).  No black owned offshore oil and gas leases or any other  natural resources leases.  So does Black America need DOI?

HUD, Commerce and Education?  Most Blacks would probably say these agencies are beneficial.  But they do not seem to be making a dent in the Black unemployment rate and home ownership.  In fact, home foreclosures have decimated many Black communities. 

Maybe it is incumbent upon Blacks to more fully engage the marketplace to find solutions to intractable problems.

No comments: