President Biden details how he would respond to the national debt during the CNN Presidential Debate. (Courtesy: CNN)
The federal government is now paying interest on the national debt at an annualized rate of more than $1 trillion per year, expanding to $1.5 trillion in 2025, according to the latest figures from the Treasury and the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Annual interest expenses have more than doubled since the third quarter of 2020, shortly before President Biden took office and they are fast becoming a pressing national-security problem, even as conflicts escalate and proliferate around the world.
From Ukraine to Gaza, from the Red Sea to the Taiwan Straits, from West Africa to the Philippines, America and its allies face threats on a scale and geographic scope we haven’t confronted since at least the end of the Cold War. We are stretching our nation’s finances and creditworthiness so thin that we may find ourselves unable to afford to defend our interests around the world. And President Biden’s latest 10-year budget seeks to rein in deficits by cutting defense spending by 21%, which can only embolden America’s rivals and adversaries.
If you already have the pedal to metal on spending and debt, you leave yourself no room to surge spending in case one or more of the current or simmering conflicts explodes, expands or metastasizes.
Our escalating debt crisis hurts national security in three key ways: It diminishes our financial "surge capacity," it........