Mullen: “National Debt is a Security Threat”

  Mullen: National Debt is a Security Threat

He’s right on one point, wrong on the other. 

Yes, the national debt is a serious national security threat.  But no, cutting Pentagon spending is not the answer. 

Cutting domestic spending—especially on entitlements and other social programs—is where the opportunity lies for cutting the deficit and in turn, the level of national debt.  According to the executive.gov article: 

 

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The national debt is the single biggest threat to national security, according to Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Tax payers will be paying around $600 billion in interest on the national debt by 2012, the chairman told students and local leaders in Detroit.

“That’s one year’s worth of defense budget,” he said, adding that the Pentagon needs to cut back on spending.

“We’re going to have to do that if it’s going to survive at all,” Mullen said, “and do it in a way that is predictable.”

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Arbitrarily cutting back on defense spending is not the way to control the deficit or reduce the national debt.  As of FY 2010, the Pentagon had asked for a mere $533.8 billion in regular funding, or about 3.6 percent of an estimated GDP of $14.6 trillion.  As we know, GDP is not going to get anywhere close to $14.6 trillion in FY 2010.  That accounting period ends on September 30, 2010, and at the current rate of 1.6% of growth, we can expect to see GDP at no more than $13.5 trillion, at best.  So it’s true that defense spending will increase as a percentage of GDP for this fiscal year.

Defense spending is not the problem, even with two wars and the effects of replacing aging or destroyed equipment.  No, the problem is the off-budget spending on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other entitlement programs.  Those programs grow as fast as the population of entitled recipients grow.  Until real entitlement program reform occurs, the programs will continue to eat an ever larger portion of federal receipts, crowding out critical expenditures for defense, transportation infrastructure, education, promotion of interstate commerce and a host of other activities that are the constitutional responsibilities of government.

When it comes to budget-cutting, the first targets of liberals are defense-related expenditures.  According to their logic, making America weaker and less able to defend herself means that our enemies are less likely to go on the aggressive.  Do you think Russia, China and Iran believe that cutting defense spending to balance the budget is a good idea?

SRSLY?

Gimme some feedback in the comments.

So, who’s responsible for the current debt level?

And more importantly, who’s responsible for the current trajectory of the federal debt?

Yesterday, Joe Biden blamed GOP for “quadrupling” National Debt.

Quadrupling?  SRSLY, Joe?

Mark Knoller, White House correspondent for CBS Radio, did a quick check of the numbers to show that the increase was actually 86% on the GOP’s watch from 2001 through the 2009 inauguration of Barack Obama.  That’s nowhere near “quadrupling,” which would represent a 400% increase, but  this calculation doesn’t tell the whole truth, either.

When George W. Bush took office in January 2001, the total US National Debt was $5.727 trillion.  Between that date and January 2007 when Democrats took control of the Congress, the total US National Debt went to $8.675 trillion.  This represents a 51% increase, or about an 8.6% increase on an average annual basis.  That’s a big jump, but wait…

From January 2007 until January 2009, Under the Democrat-controlled Congress, the National Debt increased to $10.627 trillion.  This represents a 22.5% increase, or about 11.25% on an average annual basis.  That’s an even bigger jump.  It took Congressional Democrats two years to do half more again the damage what the GOP did in six years.

From January 2009 through August 2010, under a Democrat-controlled Congress and a Democrat White House, the National Debt increased to $13.320 trillion, or about a 16.0% average annual basis. Whoa… The rate of growth in the National Debt has increased nearly two-fold since the Democrats obtained full legislative and executive power. In about 20 months, too.

In truth, since the Democrats took control of Congress in January 2007, they have steadily increased the rate of growth in the National Debt.  For the two year period between 2007 and Obama’s inauguration in January 2009, the annual rate of increase in the debt level grew by a whopping 265 basis points.  Between January 2009 and the current date, the annual rate of increase in the debt level has grown by an even more eye-popping 475 basis points.

There is no sugar-coating the Republicans’ responsibility for the increase between 2001 and 2007.  They spent in ways that would make Tip O’Neill blush.  But to suggest that the Republicans are responsible for the 54% increase since 2007 and the 16% average annual rate of growth since 2009 is just wrong. 

Here’s a chart, showing the plot using these rates of growth and projecting them into 2012.  The parabolic launch didn’t start until Democrats had all the levers of power.

Anyone who claims that the Republicans are responsible for the recent run-up in the National Debt, from $8.675 trillion in 2007 to the current level of $13.2o trillion is either very bad at math, or very good at partisan political spinning.

NB:  This is not a knock on Mark Knoller, who has done a very professional job of covering the White House for CBS Radio.  This is a knock on partisan Democrats (and their sycophants in the old school media) who want to spin numbers such that they don’t have to bear responsibility for nearly doubling the National Debt since seizing power in the 2006 mid-term election.

All figures are from Debt to the Penny, via TreasuryDirect.gov