Clinton spotlights U.S. debt as diplomatic threat

Source: Reuters

The United States' huge national debt -- now topping $13 trillion -- is becoming a major threat to U.S. security and leadership in the world, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Thursday.

"The United States must be strong at home in order to be strong abroad," Clinton said in remarks on the Obama administration's new national security doctrine, which was made public on Thursday.

"We cannot sustain this level of deficit financing and debt without losing our influence, without being constrained in the tough decisions we have to make," Clinton said, adding that it was time to "make the national security case about reducing the deficit and getting the debt under control."


Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2714967820100527?type=marketsNews

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I'm glad to see Secretary Clinton saying this. However I don't see many people at DU who seem to be concerned about our huge $13 trillion deficit. When the subject comes up, a lot of people say "yes, but what about Bush?" And it is true that Bush ran up a large deficit mostly fighting futile foreign wars and giving tax breaks to the rich.

But when Obama ran for president he accepted the responsibility to take on the county's problems regardless of who caused those problems in the first place.

I agree that a good start would be repealing the Bush tax cuts and finding other revenue sources. And while we are at it get out of those foreign wars as fast as we can. But that won't be enough in and of itself to solve the deficit problem.

Right now our deficit of $13 trillion "amounts to about 90 percent of annual gross domestic product," which is the highest it's been since WWII. Any European country with a figure like that is under the gun from EU watchdogs to get their deficit down as soon as possible because a deficit in that range is not sustainable in the long run. The same should apply to us.

Plus TAX THE HELL out of the bloated super-rich who horde all our country's wealth.

Tax the money and not the person.

Bring the tax rates back to before reagan

And then cut it some more the next.

I find it amazing that now that the banks and all the corporations who FUND these political vipers' careers have gotten their shit covered -- NOW when the working class is dying, all of a sudden we *can't spend more*.

Speaks volumes about the elites, doesn't it?

Or at least the people behind him planned it. He might not have been smart enough to think it up on his own. They run up a huge deficit, then once that deficit is in place use it as an excuse to cut social programs.

If taxing the rich and cutting the defense budget is enough to solve the problem, then I'm all for it. But what if that isn't enough? What do we do then? Sorry, I can't find a link right now, but I recall someone on Thom Hartmann's program saying a while back that even if we confiscate 99% of all millionaire's incomes, that still wouldn't be enough additional revenue to solve the deficit problem. And I just don't see the political will out there from either party to raise taxes on the middle class.

...about debt. Now it's time for the little people to pay for the spending spree. Robin Hood in reverse.

Please don't tell me to look it up. I can't navigate doing research right now. I have carpel tunnel in both hands.

the built up debt is called "debt", not a "deficit". We must bring down the yearly deficits. It was spending on wars and tax cuts for the rich that made yearly deficits soar and built up the enormous overall "debt". Spending on wars and tax cuts for those that just get fatter and lazier and more dependent on government bailouts must be what is cut.

While I am comfortable that Hillary Clinton is saying this to support repealing the Bush tax cuts (or rather letting them expire) next year, I am fairly well convinced that I cannot trust Obama not to try to hurt people on social security.