Ron Paul's Case for Reducing the National Debt

In his comments after the last presidential debate, Ron Paul said that everyone in Washington likes to talk about watching out for future generations who will be burdened by a too large national debt.

He added, “We are that future generation and we are paying the price today.”

Ron Paul is well-known for his opposition to large, or perhaps almost any, national debt as a longer term proposition. It is for him the path to national monetary collapse and general citizen impoverishment caused by inflation.

Some time ago, he said, “Deficits mean future tax increases, pure and simple. Deficit spending should be viewed as a tax on future generations, and politicians who create deficits should be exposed as tax hikers.”
But, Ron Paul is far from being alone in this view. The question of whether to have a national debt and, if so how much it should be, has been a serious topic in American political history from the Founding Fathers.

James Madison said, “Each generation should be made to bear the burden of its own wars, instead of carrying them on, at the expense of other generations.”

That would warm Ron Paul’s heart, because a large chunk of the current American national debt is directly related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet, when Paul talks about bringing our troops home and using the money thus saved to help America and Americans, he is met with severe criticism, boo’s if there is an audience, and general media ridicule and scoffing as much as to say that he is a lunatic.

But, the notion that America should go into debt to fight wars, while as old as the Revolutionary War, was not a problem for several centuries because the debt was paid in full.

But, the Second World War set a new precedent in motion. Franklin Roosevelt intoned, “There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.” He was speaking of ridding the world of Nazis, but the result was the beginning of our modern unpaid and always-mounting national debt. After WWII, there was the Marshall Plan, and then the Korean “war” and then Vietnam and then Iraq and then Afghanistan…and with each war the national debt grew.

George Washington, in his 1796 Farewell Address after serving two terms as the first American President made the warning very clear:

“As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is, to use it as sparingly as possible; avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it; avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertions in time of peace to discharge the debts, which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burthen, which we ourselves ought to bear.”

If that sounds vaguely familiar, Ron Paul said as much last weekend in the debate - I am not against the military, he said, but against keeping our troops all over the world all the time because, he added, that is not our job, it is not authorized by the Constitution and it does not make American safer.

I feel rather sure that no one laughed when President Washington issued his advice and warning, so why do Americans laugh at Ron Paul?

Is it because they are so frightened of terrorist threats that they will accept any government nonsense as necessary for security?

Is it because Americans are so convinced about the value of its military presence all over the globe as a sign of American superiority that they would feel diminished if the troops were brought home?

Or is it because Americans simply do not understand, or no longer agree with, the Constitutional concept of Congress declaring war, the President and military fighting and winning it and then coming home.  

Whatever the reason or reasons, it should be clear to all Americans that the anti-Americanism sewn in Southeast Asia by the US presence in Vietnam has now been repeated in the Middle East. The United States finally had to get out of Vietnam, in helicopter flights while the American Embassy was being overrun.

Is that the picture America wants to see replayed in Afghanistan or Pakistan?

Or would it be wiser to open a dialogue with Ron Paul and the others who agree with him to try to find a middle ground - one that would protect our national interests, save precious Dollars for domestic needs, and let the world fend a little more for itself in the assurance that America will be there if the need arises.

The military should have a strong voice in the discussion but it should not be the over-riding voice, because as President Eisenhower warned so sternly, the military-industrial complex has a vested interest in military spending and war.

Isn’t that what the Monroe Doctrine is all about???