Lowering the Debt Ceiling

Lowering the Debt Ceiling
Kevin Bryant

Most of us go through life doing the best that we know how for our families, ourselves and our country. We make sacrifices, most of which involve our own self indulgence, for family and friends. Many know what it is like to do without. Can’t afford that new car right now or pray that this set of tires last another 6 months until we can work it out in our budget to get another set. If we plan ahead, we can afford those tires when they become necessary to replace. We sacrifice our own indulgences for our own and our family’s well being. We have to do it, we have no choice.

Our congress is about to raise the debt ceiling again. They are going to give themselves and the President the authority to put us another trillion in debt and there will be the ceremonious bickering and claims about budget restraints but in the end, the only thing that will be restrained is our ability to ever get out of debt.

I am one of the strongest supporters of the military that I know. Saying this, I think it is time to militarily get out of Iraq, get out of Afghanistan and get out of South Korea. We have been in all of them for far too long and price we have paid to stay is way too great. We need to close our bases in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Bahrain, Germany, England, Italy and Spain. We need to decommission one fourth of our naval fleet, one fourth of all navy and air force aircraft, eliminate one fifth of our army and marine tank units and cut all non strategic bases here in the U.S.

Being realistic, there is not going to be another world war. Why have these bases open and the bigger question is why are we paying these countries for allowing us to keep a military presence there? They should be paying us. We can no longer afford to be the world’s police dept and peace keeping force.

Instead of laying off the people who will no longer be needed to run those bases or tanks and planes, we allow them the option of getting out or transferring and working as part of decommissioning crews, whether it is bases, or equipment. This will eliminate the need to hire more government workers to do the job and because the job will last over several years, this will allow those that are career minded to stick around and retire as they had planned to do.

After stripping everything out of each tank, plane and ship that is vital or even classified as confidential, sell off the asset. The world turns a blind eye when Russia or China sells military hardware to places like Syria and Iran so why don’t we sell them our old stuff. Who is really going to care? I figure it would take about 5 years to complete this military transformation.

Once we start seeing dollars back in savings or through the sale of equipment, immediately start buying back our treasury bonds starting with those who hold the smallest amounts. Once you pay off the smallest, you then buy back the next smallest and so on. Once the debt starts to come down, we actually lower the debt ceiling by the same amount.

As for closing bases here in the U.S., there is no discrimination between the states. Each state must offer up at least one military base. If they do not have a base, then they must offer up a federal park or some other federal land equivalent to the smallest federal park in that state or nearest military base in proximity. The state has the first right to purchase back the land from the federal government. If the state does not want to buy it, then it may then go up for sale to the general public.

The only losers in this is the foreign governments who will lose income because we will no longer be paying them to keep a military presence in their country and having our service members pumping millions into their economies.

Let’s not raise the debt ceiling. America will not default on its loans. Congress will have to either sell land back to the states to pay the bills or stop funding useless crap like NPR, Africa Aids Relief, and ethanol subsidies and transfer that money to pay the debt.

I know… it makes sense therefore the government will never even consider it.