Our Public Debt

Alexander Hamilton: 

“The United States debt, foreign and domestic, was the price of liberty."

What Hamilton said over 200 years ago is still true today. The investment in our people and in our government has allowed us the freedoms we have today and has allowed many to prosper.

I have been around Woodbury for a long while, talking to many folks that seem to think the same way. Starkly, everyone agrees that our debt is unsustainable; but some want to add more debt while others want to slash spending.

Maybe, if we start out by asking those folks that were fortunate enough to benefit the most from our overseas conflicts and economic worries at home, to pay a little more, those folks would actually see greater benefit in the future because of the actions they took today, standing with each other instead of against others.

Let’s take a look at some facts on the military as an example.

In 2010, the US spent about $663 billion on our proud and dedicated military, China about $78 billion. Most of that Chinese military expense came at the expense of the U.S. on its debt to the Chinese. So, we are basically financing the Chinese military buildup.

The question becomes: How much debt is acceptable for us, while still maintaining military superiority.

One can effectively argue that we should establish a war tax on those that benefited from our military buildup. In the past, profiteers from our military expenses were thought of as being unpatriotic, so why is this not the case today? Or to put another way: If based on equal sacrifices debt can cement support for opportunity for all, but if not, it can create a class of creditors with excessive political power, which is what we currently witness occurring.

Another example in economic terms is: An owner of a company in Woodbury surely has capital investments in that company before it begins to make a profit. So by capitalizing on an investment in the people of our community the company should derive a greater benefit by having more customers available for their product in the future.  

It makes sense and is the right thing to do.

As Hamilton stated, we as Americans live in a great county free from oppression for the most part because of borrowing funds from other countries.

I don’t think that it is outrageous to ask those that benefited from our military engagements and economic downturn to now share in the cost of getting hard working people of our communities back towards an economic recovery for everyone because of our sacrifices made.

This seems to make good economic sense to me in starting to dig ourselves out of this debt issue we continuously hear about in the local and national news. Because we should all be able to contribute to pay for the “price of liberty” in Woodbury, in Minnesota, and in America.