Word today that
South Korea has elected to diversify it's currency reserves outside US investments should alarm anyone who is concerned with America's national security.
Like Achilles of Homer's Illyad, the venerable power of the United States in the modern battlespace has it's weakest point: the nation's debt. And just as Achilles' was vulnerable to Paris' arrow shot to his heel, the Bush Administration has left America vulnerable to a host of potential adversaries who can destroy us by attacking our addiction to debt simply by dumping our investments.
Here's what patriots of both parties should do to shore up this most vulnerable point of America's security.
First, the United States needs to move
aggressively to reduce the nation's tade deficit.
The president should immediately reduce America's dependence on foreign oil by reinstating the nationwide 55 MPH speed limit, put forth legislation to impose a tariff on foreign oil imports and refined products, and increase the CAFE standards on 2008 model year automobiles by 5%. By executive order, he should direct that thermostats in all government buildings be set at 65 degrees in the Winter and 75 degrees in the Summer, with appropriate revisions to the dress code for federal employees. He should urge state governments and private employers to similarly alter their standards. He should offer federal assistance to all state, county and municipal governments that maintain public transit systems to have them convert their buses so that they are fueled by zinc-air batteries whenever they replace their fleets. And he should create a crash program - on the scale of the Manhattan Project - among universities, industry, and the government to explore the viability of all currently known alternative fuels. Finally, he should impose a schedule of fuel taxes to increase geometrically every year of the next 10 years to force consumers to "trade down" from SUV's and minvans to smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles.
In our dealings with China and the WTO, the president must insist that China's currency be made to float freely vis a vis the Dollar, or impose a tariff on Chinese goods sold within the United States. He must also enter into bilateral treaties with our trading partners to insist that they develop within three years a framework of workplace safety,labor rights, and environmental standards that are on a par with those in the United States. Countries that fail to adopt or enforce such standards would risk sanctions in the form of tariffs imposed on their goods exported to the US marketplace. US companies or their subsidiaries who continue to produce goods in such countries for sale there or in the United States would be subject to fines and would be banned from the federal procurement process.
Second, we should move immediately to begin national debt reduction.
The president should allow his tax cut to expire and re-impose the Estate Tax commencing January 1, 2006. 90% of the revenues from these taxes should be used solely to pay down debt. The remaining 10% should be used to fund low-interest loans to export industries, including agriculture.
Tax policy should do away with the tax deduction for home mortgages and mortgage loans, commencing as soon as economically viable. Americans have lived well beyond their means in the housing market, creating a bubble of mostly illusory home "values" that consumers have translated into additional debt. Tax incentives that encourage this irresponsible behavior must be eliminated as soon as practicable.
Government spending should be frozen at the current level, with genunine reductions of 3% per annum across the board imposed in each of the next ten fiscal years.
We are a nation at war. We are allowing our armed forces to carry inconceivable human burdens at considerable personal cost. And we betray them -- and the memories of their fallen comrades -- when we allow our nation's debt to be the Achilles heel of America's defense. Real conservatives (as opposed to the Bush Band) already know this. Democrats and progressives who want to shore up their defense and foreign policy credentials should join our crusade and really "support the troops".