Rising Debt, Rising China

Reince Priebus
Nov 18, 2011

Among President Obama’s many broken promises, none is as obvious as his failure to slow the growth of the nation’s debt. Instead of cutting annual deficits in half, as promised, he racked up record annual deficits and rapidly accelerated our accumulation of debt, which recently surpassed an unthinkable $15 trillion.

In political discussion, the debt issue is often couched in terms of domestic policy, but its effects extend well beyond our borders. In their new book, Bowing to Beijing, Washington Times editorial page editor Brett M. Decker and former Senate staffer William C. Triplett II, offer a sobering account of how massive debt complicates our foreign policy with China and in turn, with the rest of the world.

Our government’s excessive spending is financed largely by foreign loans—the largest share of which are Chinese. In fact, China holds over $1 trillion in U.S. debt. As Decker and Triplett argue, that amounts to a self-imposed threat to our security and prosperity.

“America is not getting beaten by any other power,â€