Chris McDaniel rubs me the wrong way. He seems smug, and he proved himself to be a self-interested opportunist, as Gov. Phil Bryant rightly pegged him, when he switched from running against incumbent U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker, which would have been a difficult fight against a strong politician who had President Trump’s endorsement, to seek the open seat vacated by Sen. Thad Cochran’s retirement.
I don’t agree with the Jones County lawyer and state senator on the state flag issue either, which McDaniel has used to stir up populist support when racial strife is the last thing our state or nation needs.
Yet I’ll consider voting for him for one reason: Maybe he’ll take seriously what I consider one of our nation’s most pressing, yet usually ignored issues: the ever-growing national debt.
Rand Paul, R-Ky., and his ilk in Congress seem like the only ones willing to talk about this. The others, both Democrats and Republicans, ignore the issue so they can brag about what they accomplish and keep constituents happy by providing more and more services.
Fortune magazine, in a March story, gave the clearest non-partisan explanation I’ve ever read of why we have such a large national debt and what’s going to happen as it grows.
It says America’s debt, already an unfathomable $15.5 trillion, could more than double to $33 trillion in just 10 years. That pace is quickened by our government doing the exact wrong thing you should do when you’re in debt: Increasing how much it spends and decreasing how much it brings in.
Yet our nation has been able to keep borrowing more and more for one reason: Those giving the loans believe America remains strong enough to pay it all back.
And who exactly is it giving the loans to the U.S. government?
Huge entities, often nations like China, who buy U.S. Treasury bills. That means interest rates on the so-called T-bills have remained low; for example, they were selling at just over 2 percent for a year’s loan as of this week.
That points to our nation still being the most stable and successful in the world, despite the many problems we have. We should take some heart in that.
Yet problems loom.
A higher and higher percentage of our tax revenue is going to start going to paying back our debt rather than actually doing anything. Anyone who has personally encountered debt problems understands that overwhelming cycle.
Currently the U.S. spends 8.1 percent of the revenue it brings in on paying back interest on its debt. And that’s expected to be the fastest-growing segment of federal spending over the next decade.
“That increase represents money the U.S. is just throwing away — that’s crowding out the funding on everything from health care to the military,” Marc Goldwein, the senior policy director for the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, was quoted as saying by Fortune.
Yet Congress has shown absolutely no willingness to take the unpopular steps needed to right the ship: Namely, spending less and taxing more. In fact, it’s done the opposite.
McDaniel and his folks are the only sort who seem willing to draw attention to the national debt problem. Every year we wait the harder it will get to climb out of the hole. That’s why increasing their influence in Congress might be a good thing, and why I’ll be listening closely to what each candidate in Mississippi says about this issue as November approaches.
Reach Editor/Publisher Charlie Smith at csmith@columbianprogress.com.
