@ Polk GOP picnic: Ron Paul

Texas Congressman Ron Paul was the first presidential candidate to speak at tonight’s Polk County GOP picnic.

Paul began by saying a reporter this past week had asked him a question, predicated on a stat that nearly half of Americans don’t pay the federal income tax.

Paul told the crowd here he had told the reporter this:  “We’re halfway there.”

Paul would abolish the federal income tax.  With fewer federal taxes, Paul says, ‘We wouldn’t have the entitlement system. We wouldn’t be the policeman of the world…Our problem is government is too big.  As government gets bigger, our personal liberties are diminished.”

Taxation is a symptom of what the nation’s addiction to “entitlements” according to Paul.

“The people have to change their appetite for government,” Paul said..

Paul said he wasn’t one to be “nipping at the edges”.

“I do not believe entitlements are rights….people who claim they’re entitled to something does not mean they have a right to what you earn,” he said.

Paul talked about foreign policy, blasting his fellow members of congress for failing to try to stop U.S. involvement in Libya, for example. “Congress hasn’t stood up to the president,” he said.

Paul said government should be “out of our lives, off our backs and out of our wallets” and he forecast calamity ahead.

“There’s going to be anger and demonstrations on the street…so we need to address this subject of the deficit and the debt and the spending….When you have chaos, people are too anxious and say, ‘We need more government to keep us safe,'” he said.  “…I’m afraid too many people are going to say, ‘Well, what we want is order.'”

Paul said his ideas get a “bad rap”, but “if you are truly compassionate, you will always opt for the free market.”