The National Debt is rapidly approaching 20.4 trillion dollars which will amount to approximately $200,000.00 per taxpayer.\u00a0 Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff GEN Martin Dempsey properly labeled our growing national debt as the number one national security crisis facing the nation because of its dangerous repercussions.\u00a0 This crisis falls on both Democrats and Republicans, neither of whom will stop writing checks knowing there is no money to fund the expenses.\u00a0 It also falls on multiple presidents (also of both parties), none of whom had the fortitude or leadership to forthrightly address this problem. We hear plenty about the debt during partisan elections with each party blaming the other as a basis to change control of Congress or the White House.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Shamefully neither party actually cares.\u00a0 Even the Republican \u201cFreedom Caucus,\u201d allegedly singularly focused on reducing the debt, is more partisan and less effective in doing this.\u00a0 Effective immediately, both parties, the Congress, the White House, and the American people must focus on the issue to stop a national calamity. \u00a0Remember Greece and other economic meltdowns?\u00a0 That is what we risk after years of failure and neglect by our leaders.<\/p>\n
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The national debt is like a person with runaway spending on a credit card.\u00a0 The person has no money but wants to continue to buy things.\u00a0 So long as the person makes the monthly minimum payments, the credit card company continues to extend credit.\u00a0 However, the underlying debt continues to increase.\u00a0 Thus, the monthly payment continues to increase.\u00a0 Eventually the person cannot make the monthly payments and must borrow even more money just to make the monthly payments, never touching the actual debt.\u00a0 This is where we are.\u00a0 The United States is borrowing money just to make our interest payments on the debt.\u00a0 Not only are we not paying off the debt at all, the debt continues to rise as we borrow more and more money just to keep pace with the rising interest payments.\u00a0 It is easy to see two things from this perilous trend.\u00a0 First, the more we spend on the debt, for which we have no choice, the less revenue there is to spend on all other priorities.\u00a0 Whether to you favor entitlements and health care spending, military spending, infrastructure spending, or anything else, it is all very much in jeopardy.\u00a0 The government has many responsibilities and requirements, but the looming crisis threatens all of it.\u00a0 Nobody wins, we all lose.<\/p>\n
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It is important to note that the national debt and the budget deficit, while related, are separate issues.\u00a0 Clearly, we must end annual budget deficits before we can ever hope to reduce the national debt.\u00a0 President Clinton eliminated annual deficits with a strong economy and bipartisan cooperation on taxes and budgets.\u00a0 George W. Bush, with bipartisan Congressional acquiescence, again ran up large deficits.\u00a0 While commencing two wars and not paying for them, neither President Bush nor Congress had the fortitude to ask the American people to forgo the tax cuts to pay for the wars.\u00a0 President Obama lowered annual budget deficits but without Republican willingness to cooperate on anything was not able to eliminate them.\u00a0 However, despite the fa\u00e7ade of rising and falling annual budget deficits, Congress never reduced the national debt.\u00a0 More about taxes and budgets in a separate piece to devote the emphasis those issues merit.<\/p>\n
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China holds most of our debt along with other foreign powers, none of whom have our best interest at heart.\u00a0 As creditors, these nations have limited patience with growing U.S. budget irresponsibility.\u00a0 They can see the impending crisis and will not wait until it is too late to protect their investments.\u00a0 Focusing on China, over the past few decades they have committed numerous trade, economic, and other violations.\u00a0 Due to complex geopolitical challenges, multiple U.S. administrations have been unable or unwilling to address China\u2019s ongoing transgressions.\u00a0 China continues to undermine the U.S. economy while collecting a dangerous level of U.S. debt, gaining incredible leverage over the U.S.\u00a0 Today, our indebtedness to China prevents us from challenging China or taking various forms of action to encourage China to play by accepted international rules governing trade and economics.\u00a0 This includes crucial issues such as stealing intellectual property, manipulating currency, unfair trade practices, and creating islands in international waters to make the South China Sea Chinese territorial water, thus threatening key international shipping lanes.<\/p>\n
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U.S. China policy aside, the biggest risk is to our nation and our economy.\u00a0 Obviously the higher the debt and the higher our payments, we reach a point where we simply are unable to meet our requirements and we reach a point where there are no more creditors willing to risk investing in our debt.\u00a0 U.S. Treasury bonds will become junk bonds.\u00a0 Some experts say we will reach this point by 2024.\u00a0 That leaves Congress and the President with little time to get the U.S. spiraling debt under control.\u00a0 We risk great economic hardship including high inflation, losing the dollar as the world economic standard (most likely replaced by China\u2019s currency), increased foreign control of U.S. assets at even more reduced rates, the failure of entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the inability to meet national security obligations, a dramatically defunded military, and pension failures.<\/p>\n
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Years prior to declaring his candidacy for President, Donald Trump spoke publicly about the danger of China\u2019s actions and the impact of our growing debt.\u00a0 He made sense because he offered strong insight without all the partisanship of the election and without the constraints of being in office and having to preside over U.S. policy.\u00a0 Many who did not support Trump in 2016 thought the silver lining of his election would be his understanding of these issues and potential to improve U.S. policy in this regard.\u00a0 Unfortunately, rather than confront the challenges as expected, he capitulated to China\u2019s ongoing violations and appears more prone to increase the debt rather than reduce it.\u00a0 We need his alleged deal-making prowess to bring Congress together to address this looming crisis with unity of effort.\u00a0 Only a bipartisan approach will work no matter how much either party may control Congress.\u00a0 Any viable solution will involve sacrifice by the American people and for the people to support and accept that sacrifice, the nation will need to have a common understanding of the crisis.\u00a0 The time is now.\u00a0 We cannot wait.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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