From article Can America Afford to Lead the World? Doug Bandow. Cato Institute. August 2022.
How long can the bankrupt American republic attempt to run the world?
President Joe Biden is the foreign policy equivalent of an alcoholic.
He can’t get enough of U.S. meddling around the world.
Although he withdrew American forces from the endless Afghan imbroglio, BIDEN HAS TAKEN THE U.S. INTO A DANGEROUS PROXY WAR AGAINST RUSSIA, announced he is prepared to fight China over Taiwan, and threatened Iran with attack.
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Where would he get the money necessary to fight so many conflicts?
The U.S. is heading toward national bankruptcy.
THIS COURSE WAS FIRMLY SET BY PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH, WHO WENT ON A SPENDING SPREE WITH A GOP CONGRESS.
President Barack Obama supported massive expenditures amid the financial crisis.
President Donald Trump encouraged Republicans to spend wildly and did little to restrain Democrats after they took control of Congress, especially after the spread of Covid
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And so it continues.
Never mind Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s warning “the US debt path is completely unsustainable under current tax and spending plans.”
EVERY DAY THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION IMAGINES NEW PROGRAMS AND EXPENDITURES.
The latest is the “Inflation Reduction Act” bill negotiated with West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin.
If enacted, its impact will be to fuel already raging inflation.
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Strictly speaking, governments don’t go bankrupt.
They become insolvent, renegotiate debt, accelerate the printing press, devalue currency, quit paying employees, cut social programs, and take other steps that immiserate their populations.
None of them continue to bestride the world like a colossus, subsidizing the defense of allies near and far, intervening in distant hotspots of little importance to their people, ORDERING THE REST OF THE GLOBE TO CONFORM TO THEIR DICTATES, AND OTHERWISE BEHAVING LIKE THE U.S. GOVERNMENT TODAY.
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How much longer can Washington afford to take on such an inflated international role?
CBO reports read like horror scripts.
The total national debt is about $30.6 trillion.
Publicly held debt is $23.9 trillion, a bit over 100 percent of GDP.
The projected rise in U.S. debt is inexorable and soon will bust the record of 106 percent set in 1946 at the Second World War’s end.
DEBT HAS AVERAGED 46 PERCENT OF GDP OVER THE LAST HALF CENTURY, AND WAS AT 35 PERCENT AS RECENTLY AS 2007, before the financial crash triggered massive bailouts, subsidies, and other outlays.
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By the end of 2022, federal debt held by the public is projected to equal 98 percent of GDP.
The rapid growth of GDP helps hold down the amount of debt relative to the nation’s output in 2022 and 2023.
In CBO’s projections, debt as a percentage of GDP begins to rise in 2024, rising to a stunning 185 percent of GDP in 2052.
COUNTRIES LIKE GREECE HIT THE FISCAL WALL WELL BEFORE REACHING THAT LEVEL.
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Washington long has benefited from the lack of effective monetary competition.
That is slowly changing.
Much of the world desperately wants alternatives to the dollar, which currently gives U.S. politicians another tool for exercising political domination.
Most important, INVESTORS WHO WONDER AT THE ABILITY OF AMERICA TO SHOULDER AN INCREASING DEBT BURDEN ARE LIKELY TO DEMAND EVER HIGHER INTEREST RATES.
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Of course, significant tax hikes are an option.
However, THE U.S. PUBLIC HAS GOTTEN USED TO A FREE RIDE, LOTS OF BENEFITS FINANCED BY LOADS OF DEBT ENABLED BY SUBSTANTIAL FOREIGN MONEY.
Hiking rates and adding levies would generate substantial political resistance, especially since much of the money would go to the defense of others who spend much less to defend themselves.
“Pay up so the allies can pay less” isn’t likely to be a winning electoral slogan. Middle class benefits are understandably quite popular since they benefit Americans.
In contrast, much of the U.S. “defense” budget goes for other nations.
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Even when war came to Europe’s eastern border this year, the U.S. did much more than NATO’s European members to aid Ukraine while Washington’s supposed allies sought to entangle it in a direct conflict with Russia.
The same people in 2020 told pollsters in a crisis they opposed aiding their NATO allies but expected the U.S. to intervene on their behalf.
Even more grotesque was the specter of A SUBMISSIVE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN VISITING THE KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA, PROMISING U.S. MILITARY PERSONNEL as personal bodyguards for the corrupt and oppressive Saudi royals.
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AMERICANS WILL HAVE TO SET PRIORITIES AND DECIDE WHETHER THEY WANT TO CONTINUE PLAYING GLOBOCOP AS FISCAL CRISIS ENGULFS WASHINGTON.
War is sometimes necessary, but for America it has become a foolish, almost frivolous matter of choice.
The endless Global War on Terrorism was awful, but conflict with Russia or China, or even North Korea or Iran, would be much worse.
The looming debt crisis will have at least one silver lining: forcing Americans to finally rethink U.S. foreign policy.
(end of article)
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“Americans will have to set priorities and decide whether they want to continue playing globocop as fiscal crisis engulfs Washington.”
We need tHAT globocop:
“U.S. goes around and soon grounds U.N. while New Schöpfers in countries everywhere round their squares.
Our HATters having covertly and overtly won o’er their brothers and sisters and empowered the positive happiness-lovers of those other countries, they’ve been enabled to:
-upend their negative Old-norm misery-demanding misery-wuvvers
-suspend their misery-supplying socialist nationalist government top-mafia Joe and Juro shapeless-forms”
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