Art Bell challenges Browne on the Libertarian position on drug legalization. Browne contends that the thirty-year war on drugs has driven up murder rates, financed gang warfare, and filled prisons with nonviolent offenders while failing to keep drugs out of schools or even government prisons. He advocates ending all federal drug prohibition and releasing nonviolent drug offenders to make room for violent criminals. Browne also calls for eliminating the CIA, the FDA, and all federal regulatory agencies.
The discussion turns to national defense, where Browne proposes a military budget of approximately fifty billion dollars focused solely on protecting American borders, including missile defense. He advocates withdrawing from all foreign treaties and international organizations.
Key Moments
Abolish federal welfare entirely - no block grants: Browne tells Bell he would eliminate federal welfare in his first year, with no block-grants back to the states, and let each state decide on its own. He argues most states would exit the welfare business entirely and return to pre-1960s charity-based care.
Cut federal spending 50% and repeal income tax in year one: Browne lays out the headline platform plank: cut federal spending 50% the first year and end the personal income tax in the first year, funding the constitutionally-authorized federal government with excise taxes and tariffs alone.
Pre-WWI heroin was sold to 14-year-olds at the drugstore: Defending full drug legalization, Browne argues that before the First World War a 14-year-old could walk into a drugstore and buy heroin without producing the drive-by shootings, gang warfare, or schoolyard pushers that drug prohibition created.
Eliminate the FBI, CIA, and DEA: Browne would dismantle the federal law-enforcement and intelligence apparatus - BATF, DEA, FBI, and CIA - keeping only a missile defense plus border defense, on the grounds that all crime is local and overseas intelligence is only needed for forever-war retaliation.