Progressive World Review

        The Washington Post columnist David Broder warns us of impending fiscal crises where the national debt is expected to increase by two trillion dollars over the next five years, rising from seven trillion now, to nine trillion dollars,

The budget resolutions approved last week both envisage an increase in the deficit next year. The Senate predicts $366 billion, the House $340 billion. Meanwhile, over the next five years, independent estimates are that the national debt, already $9 trillion, will grow by $2 trillion. Almost half the government debt owed to banks or individuals is held by foreign creditors, notably China, Japan and the OPEC nations, up from 13 percent five years ago.

        Broder informs us that the former head of the Government Accountability Office, David M. Walker has, for some time,  been an outspoken critic of Washington’s fiscal possibility and that if we don’t mend our ways disaster looms ahead,

Last week, he cautioned in a speech that “largely due to the aging of the baby boomers and rising health care costs, the United States faces decades of red ink. . . . If the United States continues as it has, policymakers will eventually have to raise taxes or slash government services that U.S. citizens depend on and take for granted. . . . Over time, the U.S. government could be reduced to doing little more than mailing out Social Security checks to retirees and paying interest on the massive national debt.”

        Like most, Walker blames politicians on both sides of the aisle for acting irresponsibly,

Even as a nonpartisan employee of Congress, Walker has been blunt enough to say, again and again, that “at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue and on both sides of the political aisle, there are too few leaders who face the facts” about this fiscal mess.

But this is an over-simplification that ignores the elephant in the room.  The United States spends more on its military than all other countries combined.  Most people probably like the fact that we have such a powerful military but even the conservative Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us of the dangers of an industrial military complex run amok.  Most Americans would probably also assume that this enormous expenditure is about making us safer but they would be mistaken.  The relative ease of the 9/11 attack gives lie to that assumption, as well as our inability to bend Iraq or any part of the Middle-East to our will.  No, our over sized military serves only to enrich the corporate America that feeds it as well as boost the egos of the warmongers who endlessly advocate for endless war.

        Balancing the budget needn’t mean slashing important social programs or raising taxes on the middle-class.  We’re the richest country in the world, we can afford an America that educates our children, takes care of its elderly and provides health care for everyone we just need to make these our priorities rather than world dominance.  America is an empire and don’t forget, every empire falls.

–Paul Wilden

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