Our Greatest National Security Threat

The enemy comes from within not from without

Excessive debt and deficit spending is the United States’ greatest national security threat.  Nations have been toppled, people left to starve, and dictators like Hitler have risen to power in response to the conditions created by excessive national debt.  

However, our leaders’ addiction to debt and deficit still remains under-discussed and politically ignored.  

The tame inner workings of Congress, for example, disallow for these candid conversations regarding domestic fiance.  There, in those hallowed halls, leaders instead spend most of their time rewarding their colleagues for party loyalty with additional fundraising opportunities and prized committee seats.  Convenient right?  With no incentive to act on this pressing matter members of Congress instead bicker on TV and create conflict to attract even more donors.

This is because it’s easier to sow division for self-benefit than to come together to deliberate on how to solve the people’s problems.

In fact with the existing budget processes in place it's clear many members of Congress are only tangentially concerned with fixing our finances.

The most damning evidence in support of this conclusion is the concept of “mandatory spending.”

Mandatory spending provisions allow Congress to ignore the ballooning costs of outdated programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid by allowing the funding of these programs to automatically increase without Congressional review.

Clearly Congress’ fiscal malfeasance has gotten out of control.

To fight this at least two things are necessary.

To start, members of Congress should work to get rid of the perverse fundraising incentives that encourage divisive politics in exchange for donors’ dollars.  Only when political tensions are de-escalated can members of Congress think clearly about important issues like our budget.

Second, members of the public should demand that members of Congress spend less time on TV or fundraising and more time thinking about how to end our crippling problem with excessive debt and deficit spending.  

Until this happens America will be destroyed not by the enemy from without like China, but from the fiscal enemy from within like deficit spending.  However, unlike the China issue, combating our national debt isn’t likely to attract any new donors.  Such is life on K Street.

Zigmund Reichenbach holds a M.A. in Philosophy from West Chester University.  You can find him commenting on news stories of national and state interest at his Facebook page Zigmund Reichenbach -- Commentator or you can follow him on Twitter @zreichenbach1.  Additionally you can find episodes of the weekly Sunday podcast that airs via Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter at this link here. 

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