Ron Paul has $1.9 million in his back pocket

Of all the congressmen from Texas, the small-town obstetrician, as he's sometimes called, has the second biggest wad of cash in his re-election account.

So reports The Texas Tribune.

So if you think you can knock him off, you've got an uphill fight on your hands, it would seem.

Only Lloyd Doggett, the liberal Dem from Austin, has more of that groovy re-election cash, with a tidy $3.1 million burning a hole in his stone-washed jeans.

Speaking of Paul, who we've really grown to like as our national deficit zooms out of control, he was interviewed the other day by bankrate.com, which asked when everything started going to hell.

Said the doc:

" That's a vivid memory for me: Aug. 15, 1971. It was a Sunday night, and (President Nixon) removed the last linkage to gold, closed the gold window. He put on wage-and-price controls and 10 percent tariffs. The astounding thing was, the financial community loved it. The stock market went up. But it ushered in the decade of the '70s, which turned out to be a disaster, so my instincts were right.

From 1971 on, if you look at any charts on price inflation, expansion of the money supply, increase in debt, (you'll find that) so many charts just explode from the early '70s until now. Those curves are unsustainable. The economic laws are demanding that something has to give. The biggest concern I have is this easy money where central banks can accommodate politicians.


Bankrate: Why don't our leaders rein in the Fed?

Ron Paul: Politicians to a large degree like it. They might complain a bit, but they like it because they can fight their wars and run their welfare state and not be responsible."

So if you think Ron Paul and his gold standard schtick is ridiculous, go ahead, knock that chip off his shoulder. It's a free country. Take him out. But remember, he's got $1.9 million worth of chips.