Ron Paul must not be elected president because he is dangerously unrealistic in his opinion of what the role of the US should be (effectively none at all) in world affairs.

But his proposals for cutting government spending, and so reducing the power of government, should be seriously considered by whichever Republican candidate is elected.

Here’s an outline of his ideas from an editorial in Investor’s Business Daily:

Paul proposes cutting $1 trillion within a year, including closing down five Cabinet agencies, the departments of Commerce, Education, Energy, Housing and Urban Development and the Interior, and reducing most other federal spending to 2006 levels. …

He would slash the federal workforce by 10% and reform Washington’s fiscally doomed entitlements by letting younger Americans opt out of Social Security and Medicare. Medicaid and other social welfare programs would become block grants for the states, giving flexibility to local government.

The regulatory nightmares of ObamaCare, Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank would all be dumped into the ashcan of history, the Bush tax cuts on income and investment would be extended, the corporate tax lowered to 15%, and the estate tax abolished.

That would be a good start – but only a start.