Ron Paul Does Not Need to Be Nate Silver to Predict the Fiscal Cliff

Impact

Now that it's official President Barack Obama's impressive GOTV machine also won him the closely contested state of Florida, confirming New York Times' statistician Nate Silver predictions, it's clear the Democratic darling — author of the FiveThirtyEight blog — is the best predictor of elections around. 

However, when it comes to the nation's fiscal state, specifically the upcoming "fiscal cliff" the president and Republican House Speaker John Boehner are scrambling to avoid, no one like libertarian former presidential candidate and Texas congressman Ron Paul to foresee what awaits us. His prediction? It's too late to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff. 

Paul told Bloomberg Television, on Thursday, that the country’s fiscal problems may be beyond repair: “We’re so far gone ... We’re over the cliff. We cannot get enough people in Congress in the next 5 to 10 years who will do the wise things. We have to prepare for having already fallen off the fiscal cliff.”

The libertarian icon is famous for having preached fiscal responsibility for decades, way before the Tea Party came around decrying the evils of government spending as a result of the passing of Obamacare in 2009. 

As a 2012 presidential candidate, his most recent run for the highest public office, Paul proposed ideas he said would save the country from economic disaster. Among them, returning to the gold standard and abolishing the Federal Reserve. 

However, his ideas were always disregarded by the mainstream media and the establishment wing of the Republican Party as radical — even as his supporters claim they are the most in tune with the Constitution when compared to the high borrowing and spending policies put forth by both Republicans and Democrats.

Obama recently told reporters, at the White House, that he expects to reach an agreement with the Republican-led Congress to avoid the fiscal cliff that automatically will raise taxes for over 90% of Americans if the issue is not not addressed before the end of the year. However, Paul claims this is just "more pandering" from the president.

“They’re just looking for the truth,” said the congressman. “They say, ‘Well, all we need is a little compromise.’ Well nobody expects that because they do not admit the truth, and the truth is that we are broke.”

He added, "it’s a bad sign that the public is on the receiving end of however the White House tries to fix the country’s financial problems ... People do not want anything cut. They want all the bailouts to come. They want the Fed to keep printing money. They do not believe we have gone off the cliff."