Jeb Hensarling: Why the national debt matters

Interesting op-ed in a Dallas paper by libertarian U.S. Representative Hensarling (R-TX) on "why the national debt matters" allegedly.

No evidence exhibited here that we have gotten any where with these people on the libertarian side of things; this person continues to use the frequently viewed false metaphor which depicts our public fiscal authority as being equivalent to that authority of a household.  This is a false metaphor (as always right on cue!) from this libertarian Congressman.

Some choice excerpts:

A recent newspaper headline caught my attention: “Debts, Deficits — Once a Focus [in Washington] — Fade From Agenda.” My immediate reaction was “not if I can help it.” 

So today, the House Financial Services Committee, which I chair, begins a series of hearings focused on why the national debt really does matter and why it matters right now.

For something to matter, it must first be understood. Billions and trillions of dollars are difficult to comprehend — so let’s consider the federal budget as if it were a family budget.  [Ed:  LOL here we go!]

Say a family in Mesquite earned $27,740 last year but spent $34,540.  With the $6,800 in new debt they just added, they now have $174,632 in outstanding credit card debt. To make matters ridiculously worse, the family has contracted to spend $994,000 in coming years with absolutely no way to pay for it. 

Add eight zeroes to these figures, throw in a government printing press for money, and you have a good picture of our national “family” budget — unsustainable and headed toward a crisis. 

We don’t have to wait for the inevitable crisis — like we see in Detroit and Greece  [Ed: again with the false metaphor fyi] — to know how our unsustainable debt hurts us today. Just look at our lackluster economy. 

When asked what one thing he would tell President Barack Obama is needed to foster economic growth, Honeywell chairman and CEO Dave Cote said, “I would tell him to resolve our long-term debt issue.” 

Small-business owners feel likewise. As one of them told me, “Jeb, I know somehow, someway, I’m going to have to pay for all this debt. So now is not the time I’m going to take the risk of buying new equipment or hiring a bunch of folks.” 

The national debt is keeping people unemployed and underemployed. [Ed:  ?!!?!?!?!]

Today’s debt also threatens our ability to conduct foreign policy and defend our homeland. As former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said, “At some point, financial insolvency at home will turn into strategic insolvency abroad.” Mike Mullen, the retired admiral who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, put a finer point on it when he said “the single biggest threat to our national security is our debt.”

Pretty bad understanding all around exhibited by this libertarian Congressman, and some other like-minded  libertarians he has cited both in business and the government National Security sector.

For this Congressman author and the like minded people he cites to ever be able to understand things as they really are, that is, that the authority of our institution of civil government is never fiscally constrained, but is rather only ever constrained in real terms, they are going to have to first lose the radical libertarianism they are manifestly all caught up in.

Step one has to be: "lose the libertarianism".

Only with this first happening, can we then move on to the task of transferring the key knowledge to these people on how a system of state currency is operated for our optimal public purposes.

Sorry libertarian readers, but we will continue to get nowhere without this first step.  Your libertarian philosophies are THE main impediment to our nation's economic progress, they first have to go.