by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n
P<\/span>resident Bush’s current approval ratings are about 32 percent. Only one in four Americans approves of the Democratic-controlled Congress.<\/p>\n So why are we so upset with our political leadership? Despite the housing slump, it is not the worst of times. After all, the economy is still strong, with low inflation, low unemployment, low interest rates and respectable growth.<\/p>\n The Iraqi war remains unpopular, but good news has emerged recently about the surge and Iraqis joining Americans against the terrorists. We haven’t had another 9\/11, and the Europeans \u2014 especially France and Germany \u2014 seem far friendlier.<\/p>\n Instead, our anger with our political leaders more likely originates over money \u2014 or rather the lack of it. Americans believe that their rich country is either going broke or is seen as a global spendthrift that can’t pay for what it charges. And the worry over insolvency gets worse at a time of conflict \u2014 which, as the Roman statesman Cicero once remarked, is often decided by money, “the sinews of war.”<\/p>\n We are currently servicing $9 trillion in aggregate national debt. China and Japan alone hold over $1.5 trillion in U.S. dollar reserves \u2014 the result of a general American trade deficit that usually runs about $700 billion per year.<\/p>\n The euro \u2014 pegged at less than 90 cents to the dollar in early 2002 \u2014 is now over $1.40. And the historically weaker Canadian dollar now roughly equals the value of our own.<\/p>\n Oil prices were around $22 to $28 in 2000, and are now over $80 a barrel. Over the past seven years Middle East oil exporters \u2014 many hostile to the United States \u2014 have raked in well over $1 trillion in windfall profits.<\/p>\n The annual budget deficit is shrinking but still will come in this fiscal year at about $160 billion. Economists and government officials, of course, attempt to explain away all this red ink. Creditor nations, they remind us, simply lend us back money at relatively cheap interest to keep buying their goods. So they can’t really call in their debts without ruining their own best market.<\/p>\n Where else are Japan and China going to bank their profits but in the politically stable, transparent and honest United States \u2014 an atoll of security in a world of political upheaval and corruption in Africa, Latin America and Asia?<\/p>\n Meanwhile, our weak dollar supposedly makes American goods more competitive and keeps employment here strong as we export products and services to dollar-laden customers. In any case, despite European trade surpluses in the last few years, the United States economy has outperformed the European Union’s, and our standard of living remains much higher.<\/p>\n True, oil is outrageously expensive. But in real dollars it cost more in 1979, when petroleum also took a much larger bite out of the total United States economy. Billions of dollars in annual deficits are scary, but as a percentage of our gross national product the current yearly shortfall is not historically that alarming.<\/p>\n S<\/span>till, there are problems with these easy rationalizations about charge-it America. First, we will have to spend trillions of dollars for unfunded Social Security and Medicare commitments in the next few years as our population ages. Ever fewer workers must support more lavish benefits for ever more retirees.<\/p>\n Our military has put off necessary plane and ship replacements, and needs billions to replace worn equipment. At home, neglected bridges, roads, airports and railroads need even more money in fresh investment. So we should be saving now, not going into debt, for an upcoming nasty date with fiscal reality.<\/p>\n Even more critical is the toll on our national psyche. Americans don’t like to read that they are borrowing to pay their annual bills, borrowing to import their gas, borrowing to buy Japanese cars and Chinese consumer goods \u2014 and passing on the ever-larger tab to their children.<\/p>\n When they go abroad they feel embarrassed that their currency is weak \u2014 and getting weaker. They are bothered by global whispers that our houses and cars are too large, and that we consume in a manner we haven’t earned.<\/p>\n So our collective debt is not just a problem of fiscal sustainability, but also one of national pride and security. Especially at a time of war, the perception of strength \u2014 political, financial and military \u2014 is critical to our success.<\/p>\n Instead, Bin Laden screams that we are spoiled and decadent. Europe chimes in that our national character is profligate. An ascendant China hopes that if present trends hold, even our military power must \u2014 as was true of the cash-strapped British in the 1950s \u2014 shrink to meet fiscal realities.<\/p>\n So shamed Americans wait in vain for a leader to tell us that the government will balance its ledgers \u2014 and that we the people must spend less and invest more now while we can, rather than later when we must.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u00a92007 Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services President Bush’s current approval ratings are about 32 percent. Only one in four Americans approves of the Democratic-controlled Congress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[753],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-UN","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7589,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/immigration-and-americas-failure-of-nerve\/","url_meta":{"origin":3521,"position":0},"title":"Immigration and America\u2019s Failure of Nerve","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 20, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by\u00a0Bruce Thornton\u00a0\/\/ FrontPage Magazine The number of unaccompanied children from Central America into the U.S. has reached 47,000 since October, and may hit 90,000 by the end of this year. The official story is that they are fleeing drug-gang mayhem and political violence in their home countries, and so are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mexico"","block_context":{"text":"Mexico","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/mexico\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/br-450x288.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4478,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/strange-politics-the-rise-of-the-not-so-conservative-conservatives\/","url_meta":{"origin":3521,"position":1},"title":"Strange Politics: The Rise of the Not-So-Conservative Conservatives","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 28, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online There are several issues ahead, such as immigration, deficits of all sorts, and energy dependence, that have the potential to erode conservatives' appeal to the general public. There is also no guarantee that the Democratic party is going to stay politically suicidal, as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "January 2005"","block_context":{"text":"January 2005","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2005\/january-2005\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1763,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/another-partisan-push-for-another-comprehensive-reform\/","url_meta":{"origin":3521,"position":2},"title":"Another Partisan Push for Another ‘Comprehensive Reform’?","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 23, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Candidate Barack Obama promised immigration activists, \"I think it's time for a president who won't walk away from something as important as comprehensive reform when it becomes politically unpopular.\" Now pressure groups are demanding Obama come through on his pledges. In response, the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "March 2010"","block_context":{"text":"March 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/march-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4018,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/illegal-immigration-and-the-english-language\/","url_meta":{"origin":3521,"position":3},"title":"Illegal Immigration and the English Language","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 17, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services In the fierce debate over illegal immigration, the particular terms used by those who argue our porous borders are not a serious problem can tell us a lot. There are somewhere between 8 and 15 million citizens from Mexico and Latin America in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "April 2006"","block_context":{"text":"April 2006","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2006\/april-2006\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6023,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wheres-the-patriotic-wrath-over-benghazi\/","url_meta":{"origin":3521,"position":4},"title":"Where’s the Patriotic Wrath Over Benghazi?","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 6, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPageMag.com Remember Benghazi? When al-Qaeda affiliated jihadists murdered a U.S. ambassador on the anniversary of the al-Qaeda jihadist murder of 3000 Americans? When the jihadists killed two ex-Navy Seals, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, when like the Spartans at Thermopylae they valiantly fought against an attack\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11989,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/trumped-out\/","url_meta":{"origin":3521,"position":5},"title":"Trumped Out?","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 17, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness The new post-Mueller media narrative is \u201cweariness\u201d and \u201cexhaustion\u201d with President Trump\u2019s tweets, his cul de sac Sharpie controversy, his ideas about buying Greenland, his unorthodox art-of-the-deal foreign policy that resulted in a plan to talk to Taliban leaders in the United States, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3521"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3521"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3521\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3522,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3521\/revisions\/3522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}