National Debt is a Threat to National Security

Uncontrolled national debt can lead to many national security issues: retarded economic growth, lack of capital formation, monetizing deficits

National Debt is a Threat to National Security

- Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh
Friday, June 3, 2011

National debt is the biggest threat to our national security. Most people’s eyes glaze over when discussion turns to business and economics. Americans know we have a huge debt with lots of zeroes but have no idea how it grew so exponentially large, where it came from, who owes it, who owns it, or how many zeroes a trillion has.

Do Americans care who is responsible for this debt, whether we can or should reduce it? Should they just change the channel when the business news flashes across the screen? Few people bother to look at the national debt clock.com, running at nano speed, showing second by second the total indebtedness of each taxpayer, man, woman, and child based on U.S. Congress’ policies and current spending of the U.S. government.

The national debt is like a disaster in a faraway place that does not affect or concern us; we can just turn off the news. Even fewer Americans realize that today’s economics is the continuation of politics by other means. Our politics and our economy are inexorably intertwined – to understand one, you must examine the other. The Federal Reserve System, our central bank, is never divorced from politics as they pretend. Its Chairman, Ben Bernanke, is a very powerful player as a monetary policy maker.

National debt or public debt is federal government’s indebtedness at a moment in time. It is the accumulation of previous budget deficits, the amount by which the government’s expenditures exceed its receipts during a specified period of time, usually a year. The government accumulates debt by running deficits because of exorbitant spending. Our government borrows money from U.S. taxpayers via Treasury bills, notes, bonds, foreign investors, and other countries.
We are borrowing billions we do not have from China in order to fund the Muslim Brotherhood’s so called “Arab Spring.â€