Bartlett: Debt as National Security Issue

Former Reagan budget official Bruce Bartlett writes that our budget deficit is a national security issue in Capital Gains and Games.

Republicans primarily concerned about national security ought to be in the forefront of efforts to raise revenues to reduce deficits, free up domestic saving for domestic investment, and reduce the importation of foreign saving and the trade deficit. But so far they are not. They remain loyal to the Republican obsession with tax cuts and a refusal to raise taxes in any way for any reason. However, I think my national security-minded friends are soon going to discover that massive defense budget cuts will necessarily be a big part of the price that will be paid for not raising revenues.

My main complaint with the Tea Party movement is its lack of seriousness when it comes to budgetary realities such as those mentioned by Bartlett. Despite making a lot of noise about government spending and the deficit, most Tea Partiers favor a continuation of the neo-imperialist foreign policy of the Bush administration while retaining domestic spending that they like (e.g. Social Security and Medicare). As Michael Kinsley wrote in The Atlantic most Tea Partiers think "you can keep your Medicare benefits and balance the budget by ending congressional earmarks, and perhaps the National Endowment for the Arts."

--Ballard Burgher