After weeks of challenging incumbent Rep. Ron Paul (R-Lake Jackson) to debate the issues facing the 14th Congressional District, Katy-area congressional candidate Tim Graney said he is glad Paul finally agreed to face his opponents in the upcoming GOP primary.
At the end of last week, it was confirmed that Paul will appear in person in the Katy Tea Party Patriots debate and political forum scheduled for Feb. 20 at Katy’s Taylor High School.
Paul had been invited to the debate several weeks earlier, but had remained non-committal on his actual attendance until late last week.
Throughout the primary campaign, Graney repeatedly asked Paul to take part in a public, face-to-face debate on issues facing the district, but Paul’s campaign remained silent on the challenges.
GRANEY
“It’s about time he decides to come before the voters of the district and defend his views and his record. For 20 years, he has been unwilling to work with others in Washington while simply voting ‘no’ on most issues, including his own pork-barrel spending that ultimately gets approved,” Graney said after Paul’s announcement. “Voting ‘no’ has been ineffective and done nothing to reduce government. Ron Paul has proven that working alone and voting ‘no’ has not solved problems in Washington.”
Graney has also been a strong critic of Paul’s stance on foreign policy and what Graney termed the incumbent’s “hypocritical approach to earmarks, where he loads up appropriation bills with earmarks and then votes against it.”
Although Paul’s campaign has not responded directly to Graney’s criticism – nor to requests for comment from InstantNewsKaty – reports from the Paul camp suggest Graney’s challenges were a major factor in Paul’s decision to rearrange his schedule to take part in the Tea Party Patriots’ event.
PAUL
Graney also went on to say Paul’s proposal to conduct an audit of the Federal Reserve was “a noble idea,” but did nothing to help the people of his district.
“Paul has been spending the last year-and-a-half trying to audit the Fed. While that may be a noble idea, it is not something that is going put Americans back to work,” Graney said. “Instead of championing his own pet ideas, he should be working for the people he represents and bring forth reasonable ideas that will help propel our economy forward.”
Graney said the job of a U.S. Representative is to “either be in the district listening to the people or in Washington fighting for them.”
“Instead, Paul gallivants around the country giving speeches and campaigning for others,” Graney said. “He’s everywhere but Texas.”
Paul has recently spent time in Kentucky campaigning for his son, Rand Paul, who is running for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by baseball legend Jim Bunning.
Paul has also actively supported candidates running in other congressional districts.
In addition to Graney, Paul is being challenged in the March 2 Republican primary by John Gay, a school business administrator, and Gerald Wall, a petro-chemical maintenance engineer.
The 14th Congressional District includes portions of Fort Bend County and most of Cinco Ranch.
Thus far I haven’t been very impressed with Graney, Wall and some of the other challengers. They only appear to be fishing for campaign dollars and not staying focussed on the real issues impacting the district. Hopefully the debate will help clarify some of the differences between these candidates. I haven’t heard anything yet to make me want to vote for them.
Anyone that doesn’t understand that the Federal Reserve (along with other programs such as the Postal Service and IRS, under the guise of real federal agencies) are the cause of 95% of our monetary problems really has no understanding of what it takes to get us out of this mess.
Dr Paul tells it how it is. Follow the money, honey! It leads back to a very small group in number of people who have their fat, sticky hands in nearly every aspect of the government. Get rid of those hands, or at a minimum, figure out how to account for the money sticking to the hands in the cookie jar by audits, then their jig will be severely compromised.
I believe that Congressman Paul’s greatest strength is his ability to educate people. While “gallivanting” around the country, Dr. Paul is educating people about the need for sound money, a foreign policy of freedom, defending individual liberties. He is the voice of truth and reason in a battle of ideas. Graney wants to debate Dr. Paul? I guess he didn’t see Dr. Paul own the other Republican candidates in the 2008 Presidential debate. Perhaps Graney should be careful what he wishes for.
Congressman Paul is my President.
Auditing the Federal Reserve System, which has never been audited (96 years and counting!), might well be the first step in reversing the mess both Beltway parties have created in Washington.
For Texas and Liberty,
Jeff Daiell
http://www.JeffDaiell.com
“Instead of championing his own pet ideas, he should be working for the people he represents”
By pushing for an audit of the Fed, Dr. Paul is working for me.
Wow, so much nonsense spewed here I hardly know where to begin. So, let’s start with the low-hanging fruit. First, you criticize Rep. Paul for not working with his fellow Congressmen and for “no” votes. Well, what the heck do you think he’s voting “no” to all the time? All the massive and unconstitutional spending bills that are the source of most of our problems, not the solution to them.
And secondly, you claim Rep. Paul’s approach to earmarks is “hypocritical” and that he is not fighting for the people in his district. This is just nonsensical. He votes against the appropriation bills because they’re either unconstitutional or an unnecessary waste of the taxpayers’ money (usually both). But, then, when the bills inevitably pass, why shouldn’t he have a say in how the funds are allocated? Are you suggesting that the people in his district would be better served by allowing some unelected bureaucrats in Washington make these decisions? What in the world is a good representative supposed to do differently in this situation?
And finally, to add to what the previous commenter stated, the idea that the effort to audit the Fed is “noble”, yet not in the economic interests of the people he represents is both idiotic and contradictory. The Fed is undoubtedly the most insidious means of wealth transfer from the poor and middle class to the rich and politically connected. Reining in (or better yet, shutting down) that evil operation would not only be reasonable, but would have a tremendously positive effect on the economic well-being of millions of working class Americans.
If Graney does not think reining in the Fed will help “put Americans back to work,” he just doesn’t understand how the system works. No surprise there.