Deficit spending is now a national security risk

When Giants Fall is a blog discussing the economic ramifications of the End of Empire. In yesterday's post, they cite two publications who warn that an inadequate response to the federal government's deficit spending will have severe repurcussions for national security and the global balance of power. These publications are not little blogs, either -- they are the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times:

From the Wall Street Journal:

The U.S. government this year will borrow one of every three dollars it spends, with many of those funds coming from foreign countries. That weakens America's standing and its freedom to act; strengthens China and other world powers including cash-rich oil producers; puts long-term defense spending at risk; undermines the power of the American system as a model for developing countries; and reduces the aura of power that has been a great intangible asset for presidents for more than a century.

"We've reached a point now where there's an intimate link between our solvency and our national security," says Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations and a senior national-security adviser in both the first and second Bush presidencies. "What's so discouraging is that our domestic politics don't seem to be up to the challenge. And the whole world is watching."

And from the New York Times:

[A]s Mr. Obama’s chief economic adviser, Lawrence H. Summers, used to ask before he entered government a year ago, “How long can the world’s biggest borrower remain the world’s biggest power?”

The Chinese leadership, which is lending much of the money to finance the American government’s spending, and which asked pointed questions about Mr. Obama’s budget when members visited Washington last summer, says it thinks the long-term answer to Mr. Summers’s question is self-evident. The Europeans will also tell you that this is a big worry about the next decade.

The feds are literally spending themselves into oblivion.

The states can protect themselves, even without secession, by getting out of debt themselves. How we can do that is part of the Ohio Republic's legislative program that I unveiled January 1.