Deborah Koff Ross: “That is a national security issue, in my opinion, Mr. Cooper. What if those countries decide to call those loans? What…”

“That is a national security issue, in my opinion, Mr. Cooper. What if those countries decide to call those loans? What does that mean? The "dream team," Mr. Rubin and the others told us today what it meant, and I think you asked the question. And it means higher interest rates. They will have to raise interest rates in this country to where it's attractive for other countries to buy our paper, to buy our money. That is, I think, directly a threat to our national security. And to put it in perspective, the total national debt from 1789 through 2000 was $5.67 trillion. But by 2010, the total national debt will have increased to $10.88 trillion under this Republican President's administration and under his budgets that he sends to Congress. This is a doubling, a doubling, of the 211-year debt in just 10 years. Interest payments on this debt are one of the fastest-growing parts of the Federal budget, and the debt tax is one that cannot be repealed. For every man, woman, and child in this country, you take the national debt and divide by the number of people. It is about $29,000 per person. And that is one tax that cannot be cut until we get our Nation's fiscal house in order. Our Nation, under this Republican President's budget, is borrowing about a billion dollars a day. But before we borrow another billion dollars a day, we are spending about a half billion paying interest on the debt we have already got. This puts it in perspective.…”