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| NEWSMAKER: HARRY BROWNE | |
 July 5, 2000  |
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The two-time Libertarian presidential candidate discusses his bid for the White House.
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HARRY BROWNE: Thank you so much.
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| Repealing income and social security taxes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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RAY SUAREZ: As you hear the major party nominees, the Republican and Democratic presumed nominees, Mr. Gore and Mr. Bush, argue about Social Security, you must wonder how you can get in on this argument, because your plan is totally different from both of theirs.
RAY SUAREZ: What do you do about the people who have already worked for significant chunks of their adult life, put in money into the plan -- how would you compensate them, how would you wean us from one system to the other?
RAY SUAREZ: That large sell off of government assets presumes a much smaller federal government, doesn't it?
RAY SUAREZ: So that smaller federal government would also allow you to, what, eliminate the income tax? HARRY BROWNE: Eliminate the income tax. RAY SUAREZ: How would you do that? HARRY BROWNE: Well, if you limit the government to its constitutional functions the way it was for the first 120 years or so, you don't need an income tax. The government was financed completely by tariffs and excise taxes, and it paid for national defense, the judiciary, the mint, the post office, all of these things until 1913. When the income tax was passed, that provided a virtually unlimited source of income for the federal government, and they could get into anything they wanted because the money was always there, just raise taxes, raise taxes more. Today, tariffs and excise taxes are more than enough for a strong national defense, the judiciary, the mint and all those other constitutional functions. So we should repeal the income tax completely and not replace it with a flat tax or sales tax or any other kind of tax.
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| Downsizing the federal government | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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RAY SUAREZ: Well, who would build the highways? Who would patrol the inland waterways and keep dams open and those sorts of things that various federal agencies do today? HARRY BROWNE: Sure. The funny thing about the highways is the federal
government doesn't build a single highway. All that happens is we, our
money is taken from us and sent to Washington, and then the congressmen
get together and parcel it out on the basis of who has the most political
influence, take 13 percent off the top and send it back to the states.
And your statement government builds the interstate highway in your
state. RAY SUAREZ: So, once that large percentage is taken off the top and you get something more like your whole paycheck... HARRY BROWNE: Yes.
HARRY BROWNE: Some of the services. But some of the services should
never have been provided in the first place. And what will happen of
course is that education will be less expensive, when the money is not
going to Washington in the first place. Get that government out of health
care and maybe we will once again have charity hospitals in this country,
which had been run out of business pretty much by government regulations.
We will once again have free clinics; once again doctors may even make
house calls. And hospitals stay won't take a year's pay, and health
insurance will be available to everybody. RAY SUAREZ: From reading your platform, I think one group of construction interests that might be very worried about President Browne, is the prison industry.
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| U.S. foreign policy priorities | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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HARRY BROWNE: Yes. RAY SUAREZ: You would decriminalize drugs?
RAY SUAREZ: All those programs that you talk about, each one had a friend, a sponsor - HARRY BROWNE: Absolutely. RAY SUAREZ: -- an interest group, a supporter. How could you become president and do away with them all? HARRY BROWNE: You've raised a very important point -- because that's how government grows and that's how programs continue forever -- because those who benefit from them will always be Johnny-on-the-spot in Washington. It doesn't matter whether they give money to politicians. The mere fact that they are there and we are not. We are at home taking care of our own business, our own families, working at our jobs, trying to pay our taxes, and in Washington those few people who profit from any particular government program are there, putting pressure on. Now, how are we going to stop that? How are we going break that cycle? The only way I know is that if we cancel all those programs at one time so that the reward will be so big, meaning the repeal of the income tax, that you and I and everyone else will be motivated to descend on Washington, either by mail or e-mail or fax or phone or what ever, but in some way be so motivated to put the pressure on the congress people not to renew these programs. RAY SUAREZ: We've talked a lot about domestic issues. What would a Browne foreign policy look like?
RAY SUAREZ: So the world wouldn't be a more dangerous place without an American involvement --? HARRY BROWNE: It would be a very less dangerous place, because no longer would anybody care what we do. Terrorists doesn't attack Switzerland. They don't attack Sweden, because those countries mind their own business, and if we minded our own business, we would not have to fear these people coming over here and trying to make us change our mind about this.
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| A presidential long-shot? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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RAY SUAREZ: Briefly, you've conceded that our a long shot. HARRY BROWNE: Sure. RAY SUAREZ: Why do this? HARRY BROWNE: Because I believe that it's entirely possible that by the end of this decade we will have a Libertarian president. It won't be me, but I can pave the way to elect Libertarians to Congress in 2002, run a more competitive race for somebody else in 2004 -- and maybe by then or 2008, elect a Libertarian president. But it starts with every possible vote we can get this year will bring us a step closer. So if I can get two or three or five percent of the vote this year, we could change politics in this country forever and turn the attention away from what new government programs are we going to have, how fast should the government grow, to the question of how fast are we going to shrink the government and give you back control of your life -- because that's really what I stand for, is I want you to be free to live your life as you think it should be lived, not as Al Gore or George Bush thinks is best for you. RAY SUAREZ: And it's hard work, too, this running for president? HARRY BROWNE: Of course, but it very exciting also. I get to talk to people like you, and I mean that. RAY SUAREZ: Well, good to see you again. Thanks for being here. HARRY BROWNE: Thank you very much. |
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RAY
SUAREZ: Harry Browne won the Libertarian presidential nomination at
the first ballot at their national convention this past Monday. He's
67, an investment advisor and author from Nashville, Tennessee. He has
never held public office, but this is the second time he's running for
president at the top of the Libertarian ticket. He finished fifth in
1996 with just under a half a million votes. Harry Browne, welcome to
the program. 
HARRY
BROWNE: Well, when they're arguing about anything, what they're really
arguing about is who knows best how to run your life. Who knows how
much you should save for your retirement? Who knows what kind of school
your child should go to, or how the doctor should treat you when you
go to the doctor's office? And with Social Security it's the same thing.
15 percent of your income is taken right away from you, without your
choice what so ever to go into a government scheme for retirement. Half
of it comes through your employer, half of it directly from you. George
Bush, magnanimously was you to be able to keep 2 percent of that and
invest it on your own, provided you do it the way he thinks is best.
What I think is that you ought to have that whole 15 percent, you ought
to be able to do whatever you want with it. You should decide how much
you should put aside for retirement, you should decide what's best.
Do you want it in a bank savings account, do you want it in the stock
market, do you want to buy government bonds? Why can't you make that
decision? You're as smart as George Bush is, or Al Gore. Is Al Gore
your investment advisor? 
HARRY
BROWNE: Oh, that's a good question. Unfortunately today those people
are dependent wholly on political promises. And that is the politicians
promise to take the money from somebody else to give it to you if you're
retired now. What I want to do is to sell off assets that the government
shouldn't own, these hundreds of thousands of federal buildings, millions
of acres of land, power companies, pipelines, commodity reserves, and
use the proceeds to buy private lifetime annuities for everyone who
is dependent on Social Security today. That means nobody will be left
holding the bag. They'll have accounts they can count on. The politicians
won't be able to borrow from that money, they won't be able to attach
the money in any way; it will belong to you if you're a retiree. And
then all the rest of us will be freed immediately, and completely from
the 15 percent Social Security tax. 
HARRY
BROWNE: Yes, doesn't it. I think the federal government should live
by the Constitution. And the constitution has nowhere in it does it
say that the federal government should operate a retirement scheme.
Nowhere does it say the federal government should have anything what
so ever to do with education or health care or law enforcement or welfare,
or any of these things. And the 10th Amendment makes it very clear that
if it doesn't say the federal government can do it in the body of the
Constitution, then this is left to the states and more important to
the people themselves, to take care of on their own. 
Now,
two things happen: First of all, it becomes more expensive. And secondly,
the federal government gets its hands, the politicians get their hands
on this money, and they use it to build an airport in Denver, billions
of dollars that nobody in Denver wanted that airport. They built a subway
system in Los Angeles that everybody there thinks is a joke. They built
a subway system in Miami that doesn't work -- a people mover system
in Detroit that hardly anybody uses because it goes hardly anywhere,
and this awful big dig in Boston, that probably won't be done for 20
or 30 years and is already billions of dollars over budget. These projects
would never be built, these boondoggles, if that money, that highway
money didn't go to the federal government in the first place. That's
one of the dangers of letting the federal government into this. 
RAY
SUAREZ: …community, governments at lower levels start to provide
all these services that the federal government once provided? 
All
the things the politicians promise today in health care, we once had
in this country before the federal government moved in. But then the
government moved in, made it very difficult to continue doing all these
things so, then the government says, well, now, see, you can't get health
care for 20 and 30-year-olds. So we're going to have to do something
about it; either we'll provide it or we'll mandate that companies have
to do it. We have to have health care for people with pre-existing conditions,
health care for people who leave their jobs. All of these things existed
back in the 50's and 60's, but then the federal government moved in
and now it's impossible for health insurance companies to provide that
kind of service. 
