Tuesday, July 11, 2017

Dangerous Debt

The US national debt is $20 trillion and US unfunded liabilities total $80 trillion.  The US government routinely spends $4 trillion a year and State and local governments spend another $2 trillion a year. Government now costs 40% of GDP and should cost under 25% of GDP.

 

The US national debt was $5 trillion in 2000 and should have remained at $5 trillion.  The extra $15 trillion we spend was completely wasted.

 

We have at least two countries we need to deal with.  North Korea is threatening the US with a nuclear missile strike.  Iran is threatening the US with global jihad and is the leading funder of terrorist activity on the planet. 

 

We have squandered the military superiority we had in 1990 and we need to rebuild our military to deter aggression by North Korea and Iran.

 

Our Generals have cited our debt as our biggest existential threat.  We are exactly where the Roman Empire was in the 4th century AD.

 

Trump is correctly enlisting the Saudis to defend themselves against Iranian sponsored terrorists and is correctly enlisting China to help remove the North Korean threat.  If neither are successful, we will likely be attacked by both North Korea and Iran.  We are exactly where Britain was in 1933.

 

It would be good to have a low $5 trillion US debt if we are going to need to take military action in North Korea and Iran.

 

Our debt and unfunded liabilities are bad, even if we don’t need to go to war.  We have been close to having no buyers for our debt and those foreign countries who are buying Treasury Bills could easily stop doing that. We are exactly where Zimbabwe was in 1990 and exactly where Venezuela was in 1999.

 


Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

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