[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI4tVPXlQsM]

From: L.A. Times Blog

Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) may no longer be running for president, but that doesn’t mean he slunk away quietly and is simply tending to his re-election bid (though there may not be much to do, since he’s running unopposed).

The free-market, small-government libertarian had plenty of harsh words about the Bush administration’s proposed Wall Street bailout plan when he appeared on CNN’s “Late Edition” today.

WOLF BLITZER (“Late Edition” host): What do you say to the president who wants you and your fellow Republicans and Democrats to quickly pass this $700 billion bailout package?

PAUL: Well, I think that’s a mistake because we don’t have the money. But that doesn’t mean you have to do nothing. I mean, we could reform the system. We could return to sound money. We could balance our budget. We could change our foreign policy. We could take care of our people at home. We could lower taxes.

There’s a lot of things that we can do. But the worst thing that we can do is perpetuate the bad policies that gave us this trouble in the first place, and that is that we no longer, over the last quite a few decades, believed in free-market capitalism. Capital is supposed to come from savings. We’re supposed to work hard and save.

As a matter of fact, the Chinese work hard, right now, and they save, and they’re buying up the world. But we borrow and spend and consume, and now it’s caught up to us and it’s undermining our whole system. … So this $700 billion is not going to do it.

This is Wall Street in big trouble and sucking in Main Street, now, and dumping all the bills on Main Street. … And you can’t solve the problem of inflation, which is the creation of money and credit out of thin air, by more money and credit out of thin air, and not changing policy. We have to change basic policy.

“Yes, it would be painful, but it wouldn’t last so long. What they’re doing now, they’re propping up a failed system so the agony lasts longer. They’re doing exactly what we did in the Depression.”

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Related: Ron Paul: This Bailout Won’t Be the Last