Can We Spend Ourselves Out of Debt?
Article is about our federal government’s inability to curb its appetite for spending, even as that spending threatens and weakens our national security.
Can we spend ourselves out of debt?
By Jim Dusten
President Obama’s top economic adviser, Larry Summers, says “Spurring growth, if we can achieve it, is by far the best way to improve our fiscal position.” (1) So far, the borrowing and printing up of trillions of dollars has produced an economic recovery that “has started to look like a mirage”: and a jobless mirage at that. (2) Mr. Dionne thinks we should stay the course and continue to spend money we don’t have. Many Americans disagree.
During the Great Depression one of every thirty-five Americans were receiving food stamps. Today it is one of every eight. (3) Incomes from the private sector have sunk to a new low of 41.9%; while government benefits are at a record high. (4) Nations across Europe have been ostracized by the current administration for implementing plans of fiscal austerity—reducing the size and debt loads of their governments. (Germany is cutting 80 billion Euros from their budget over the next four years and eliminating 100,000 civil service jobs. Spain is cutting public sector wages by 5% and reducing its debt load by 15 billion Euros this year.) (5) Mr. Dionne, however, accuses Congress of “racing prematurely to fiscal austerity” because some are balking at yet another proposed stimulus package of $50 billion. Congress can be accused of many things. Fiscal austerity is not one of them!
Mr. Dionne is advocating, and our leaders in Washington, D.C. are plotting, a course for America that is leading us into a “ring of fire” that is already engulfing Europe and much of the rest of the world (except for China and the oil-rich Middle Eastern countries, who don’t like us much). (6) They, and we as average citizens, need to remember that economic strength and fiscal austerity are directly connected to our national security. Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently made this poignant connection in a speech given at the Eisenhower Library, where he pointed out how President Eisenhower hated debt almost as much as communism. Secretary Gates said that America: “Could only be as militarily strong as it was economically dynamic and fiscally sound.” (7)
I do not think it’s wise to weaken ourselves, national security-wise, temporarily; even with a promise that later our leaders will suddenly discover fiscal austerity. If they cannot make the tough choices today; why should we believe they will make them later?
(1) “Why spending now can allow for fiscal discipline later”; E.J. Dionne; PJS; 6-15-10
(2) “Stocks dive 376 points on world economic worries; PJS; Business; 5-21-10
(3) “Key indicators of a new depression; Neeraj Chaudary; 6-3-10; www.europac.net/externalframeset.asp?from&id=18815&type=browne
(4) “Private pay shrinks to historic lows as government payouts rise”; Dennis Cauchon; USA Today; 5-26-2010
(5) Time Magazine; 6-21-10; Briefing, The World, 10 Essential Stories; p.18
(6) “U.S., Greece, Spain are in debt risk ‘ring of fire’, Pimco Says”; www.Bloomberg.com; Candice Zachariahs; 5-25-10
(7) “Obama Foreign Policy 2.0”; Time Magazine; 6-21-10; Commentary, Peter Beinart
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