Political Quotes

On the recordMarch 10, 2011
We are borrowing over $5 billion per day. That's $35 billion borrowed per week to run our government, totaling over $1.5 trillion in borrowed money just to run for a year. Harvard's great economic historian, Niall Ferguson, noted that the decline of a country can be marked when it pays its moneylenders more than its army. His classic case comes from the French monarchy of the 1780s who failed to make interest payments on their debt, causing the financial collapse that triggered the Revolution. Recently, Carmen Reinhard and Kenneth Rogoff wrote a brilliant book called 'This Time is Different, Eight Centuries of Financial Folly.' Their vast study revealed that most government officials believe they are always unique and different, causing them to make the same mistakes that crippled past nations and empires. Using Ferguson's tipping point, where are we today? This year, the total cost of maintaining our army will equal $137 billion. This same year, we will pay $225 billion in interest to our money lenders for the use of $14 trillion borrowed from China, Japan and elsewhere. The startling conclusion is that we have already passed Ferguson's tipping point by paying America's money lenders more than our own Army. It gets worse. In just 6 years, the administration says that we will have to pay over $661 billion to our money lenders for interest on our rapidly expanding debt.
Said by
Mark Kirk
Republican · Illinois
Source
govinfo.gov
Mar 10, 2011

Editor's note · Context

The speaker addresses the dangers of national debt and its implications for military funding.

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