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Rick Santorum helped bring about the fiscal calamity that is destroying the United States. He was, and is, as much a part of the problem as Obama and the Democrats. Ron Paul, meanwhile, was and remains the lone, consistent voice of opposition to the big-spending, government-expanding schemes of both Republicans and Democrats. Santorum's path has led the country to ruin. If Dr. Paul's prescription had been followed, all of this could have been avoided. Here is the record.
As a U.S. Senator, Rick Santorum voted to raise the debt ceiling FIVE TIMES. Ron Paul has opposed EVERY debt ceiling increase, and has NEVER voted for an unbalanced budget or tax increase.
Santorum voted to DOUBLE the size of the U.S. Department of Education. Ron Paul has always advocated ABOLISHING the Department of Education, as Ronald Reagan promised but never succeeded in doing.
Santorum supported the largest expansion of the welfare state since the 1960s, the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit, which added a $16 TRILLION UNFUNDED LIABILITY to the national debt. Ron Paul has always opposed ALL federal interference in medicine -- even as a doctor, when he treated patients for free rather than accept Medicare and Medicaid payments from the government.
Santorum supports foreign aid, the process by which the U.S. government borrows money from China and uses it to bribe and prop up foreign governments (including China's), while taxing Americans to pay interest on the loans. Ron Paul has NEVER voted for foreign aid because, as he points out, it is not permitted by the Constitution, it is a bad idea, and, anyway, the U.S. government is broke.
Santorum was a vocal cheerleader for war against Iraq and voted for the authorization to use force, which left the final decision of whether or not to go to war in the hands of the president. As a result of the war, more than 4,000 American service members were killed and more than 30,000 were wounded. Untold numbers of Iraqi civilians died and Iraq's Christian community was decimated. The war cost more than $700 billion in direct appropriations and much more when the indirect costs (long-term treatment of wounded veterans, etc.) are factored in. Now, after a partial American withdrawal from Iraq (an embassy larger than the Vatican remains, along with high-paid military contractors), the different ethnic factions of that country are embroiled in a civil war. And all of this because of fear-mongering over non-existent weapons, based on fraudulent information.
Ron Paul saw the push for war against Iraq beginning right after 9/11, and issued many articles and statements against it. On September 4, 2002, just months before the war began, Paul addressed the House of Representatives: "Mr. Speaker; I rise to urge the Congress to think twice before thrusting this nation into a war without merit — one fraught with the danger of escalating into something no American will be pleased with." When it became clear that war was imminent, Paul introduced a resolution calling for a declaration of war, as required by the Constitution, although he intended to vote against it. This was blocked by other members of Congress, one of whom told Paul, "That part of the Constitution is anachronistic. We don't follow it anymore."
Now, after all the needless death and destruction wrought by the Iraq war, Santorum is leading the charge for another war of aggression based on dubious claims about weapons. And Ron Paul is, once again, counseling restraint and a return to the neutral foreign policy advised by America's founders.
There's more, sadly.
Santorum sided with big labor unions in opposing a national right-to-work law that would have protected workers from being forced to pay union dues. He supported federal housing programs and government-sponsored enterprises like Fannie and Freddie, which inflated the housing bubble, while Ron Paul warned -- as far back as 2001 -- that a bubble was forming and would eventually burst, and proposed legislation to eliminate the line of credit from the U.S. government to Fannie and Freddie.
Ron Paul has never taken a government-paid junket, has refused participation in the lucrative congressional pension plan, and returns a portion of his office budget each year to the U.S. Treasury. Santorum, on the other hand, collected $100,000 in taxpayer funds from the Penn Hills School District between 2001 and 2005 to pay for online courses for his home-schooled children. He did this by fraudulently claiming residency in Pennsylvania while he and his family actually lived in Washington, D.C.
If you support Santorum, don't act surprised when you end up with more of the same -- more big spending, debt, wars, lies and corruption. If you want real change -- if you REALLY believe in the principles of limited government enshrined in the Constitution -- then the choice is obvious. Go with the only candidate who has ALWAYS stood for these principles, through thick and thin, and oftentimes alone: Ron Paul.
