Americans Are Tremendously Generous

By Ron Paul

As I have said many times in the past, the American people are very generous and compassionate. It's a great error to believe that if government doesn't do something, that no one else will. Accepting such a notion opens the door wide open for one government power grab after another.

This afternoon, in response to Senator Bernie Sanders' assertion that "we are not a compassionate society," my son Rand had a fantastic response that I'd like to share with you today:

"One of the things that’s extraordinary about our country is just two years ago, in 2014, we gave away $400 billion — privately, not the government, individually —  to churches and to charities. We’re an incredibly compassionate society. This was misplaced in sort of the wonky numbers of this number and that number within health care how much we do help each other.

Not only do we help each other within our own county, I’d bet you most — half the physicians in my community in Bowling Green have gone on international trips and done international charity work and all that is lost in saying that we’re this heartless, terrible country, and I would just argue the opposite. I think the greatness of our country and the greatness in the compassion of our country — we give away more than the gross domestic product of most of these socialized countries around the world."

Americans are tremendously generous as it is, but imagine how much more generous we would be if the income tax were abolished and we were able to keep the fruits of our labor. 

Imagine how much more generous we could be if The Fed didn't constantly debase our currency and rob us of purchasing power. We're very generous now, and that's with the government weighing us down.

We know for a fact that government assistance is a disaster. Perhaps we could really unleash the generosity of the American people by getting government out of the way.

That sounds like a plan.