Should we spend over $700B a year on an imagined threat or would it be more prudent to deal with a real threat? Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner informed Congress on May 16 that the United States has reached its legal debt limit, setting off a ticking time bomb that could explode in less than three months if lawmakers can't bridge differences and allow more government borrowing. Immediately, the Obama administration began temporarily halting payments to the retirement and federal pension accounts of federal workers and started borrowing from those funds to be restored later, theoretically speaking, if the debt ceiling is raised by $2 trillion, which would be enough to get the issue past the 2012 elections.
Now that, folks, is what I call a real problem. Our treasury is reduced to not only suspending payments to retirement accounts, but also borrowing from them while promising to restore them once the treasury department is allowed to add another $2 trillion to our national debt -- getting us by the 2012 Presidential elections. That desperate strategy will get us to August 2, and if something is not accomplished by then by a split Congress, the U.S. will begin to default on its financial obligations.
But the Pentagon, its numerous lobbyists, and its colleagues on Capital Hill and in the White House say pay no attention to all of that nonsense. China, Russia, Korea (North), somebody, anybody (?) will attack us at any moment, and we need the F-35, Abrams tank, and our various military toys to protect you. However, the current ATM card for the Pentagon is terrorism. In the wake of 9/11, Americans hear terrorism and they sign a blank check, made payable to the Pentagon. Never mind the fancy toys our Pentagon wants that are totally immaterial to combating terrorism, dealing with the Arab Spring, or even ending our endless wars.
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