Deficit Balloons Into National-Security Threat

Wall Street Journal

The federal budget deficit has long since graduated from nuisance to headache to pressing national concern. Now, however, it has become so large and persistent that it is time to start thinking of it as something else entirely: a national-security threat.

The budget plan released Monday by the Obama administration illustrates why this escalation is warranted. The numbers are mind-numbing: a $1.6 trillion deficit this year, $1.3 trillion next year, $8.5 trillion for the next 10 years combined—and that assumes Congress enacts President Barack Obama's proposals to start bringing it down, and that the proposals work.

These numbers are often discussed as an economic and domestic problem. But it's time to start thinking of the ramifications for America's ability to continue playing its traditional global role.

Knowing this, is there a point where continued expanded spending initiatives violate the oath to protect our country from enemies foreign and domestic? Perhaps this is creating the crisis from which we will need to be rescued? Fear may make us eager to accept things that reason would otherwise have us avoid.