Opinion

Debt threatens our national security

Thaddeus G. McCotter Former Member of Congress
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Given Christmas Day’s attempted terrorist bombing of a plane bound for my hometown of Detroit, Americans are concerned about their security.  Given the Obama Administration and its Democrat Congress’ fiscal irresponsibility, Americans are concerned about their prosperity and, indeed, their very sovereignty over their servant government.  For just as its refusal to recognize our security is through strength not surrender, the Left equally refuses to accept our prosperity is from the private sector not the public sector.  The result is evident in record spending, deficits, debt, epidemic unemployment and a debt threat to our national security.

In 2009, the Obama Administration and its trillion-dollar Democratic Congress spent $3.5 trillion of your tax dollars (including those borrowed from future years)–a figure far exceeding the spending of any president’s first year in office.  Yet, as the Democrats exploded the federal budget, Americans had to cut their family budgets.  In response, the Democrats lamely argued “only government” could fix the economy, an inane attitude captured in Vice President Biden’s non sequitur that “we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt.”

The result of the spendthrift Democrats’ flawed premise is demonstrable in the suffering it has inflicted upon working Americans: the unemployment rate hit a 26-year high of 10.2% nine months after the President claimed his trillion-dollar “Stimulus” spending bill would cap it 8%.  Adding insult to this injury, already-strapped Americans will pay for this trillion-dollar fiasco through record deficits, debt and–ultimately–calls for higher taxes.

Immune to facts, the arrogant Democrats’ stubbornly cling to their flawed premise that only government can fix–and lay the new foundations of–America’s economy.  Thus, in addition to its failed trillion-dollar “government stimulus” bill, H.R. 1, the Obama Administration and its compliant Congress are pushing ahead with H.R. 2454, the “Cap-and-Tax” bill, which is premised upon the superstition that government can control the weather by increasing your taxes, taking your job, and dictating your life; and, of course, with their publicly rejected versions of their health redistribution bills to have government control your health care, too, by raising taxes (including on employer provided benefits), creating rationing boards, and cutting half-a-trillion dollars from seniors’ Medicare.

All the while, our national deficit and debt climbs.  Just last month, the debt exceeded $12 trillion, marking an increase of 39% since Democrats gained control of Congress in 2006.  This gift to their constituencies constitutes a gift that will keep giving taxpayers heartburn for years to generations.  Moreover, as these deficits and debt grow, so does our indebtedness to foreign nations – notably communist China, a strategic threat and rival model of governance which forms one of the four great challenges facing our Global Generation.  The ability of such a nation to commit economic statecraft against our nation is both evident and occurring, as witnessed in the Obama Administration’s timidity in speaking out for human rights when in communist China, which continues to be a safe haven for companies banned from operating in the U.S. for selling missile technology to Iran.  In this and other instances, thus forms the debt threat to national prosperity and security.

As Americans living in the real world, however, we understand the insanity of adding massive government spending, debt, and increased taxes at the very time we need the industriousness and entrepreneurial genius of the American people to grow our economy and end this recession; and the courage and sagacity of the American people to defend our freedom at home and expand it abroad to defeat our terrorist enemy.

Realizing the Democrats’ out-dated aim of empowering government at the expense of the American people is taking our nation in the wrong direction, Republicans both oppose the “government stimulus,” “Cap-and-Tax,” and health redistribution bills; and propose our own people-empowering solutions to America’s immediate and great challenges.  Ultimately, Republicans know that America’s strength and salvation remains her free people; and they–not big government–will ensure our nation remains a blessed sanctuary of liberty, inspired and guided by the virtuous genius of her free people and eternally blessed by the unfathomable grace of God.

U.S. Rep. Thaddeus G. McCotter (MI-11) is Chair of the Republican House Policy Committee, for which he recently authored “We the People: Wide Awake for Our Newest Birth of Freedom.” For more information, please visit www.republicanhousepolicy.com.