Hillarysworld

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2714967820100527?type=marketsNews

The United States’ huge national debt — now topping $13 trillion — is becoming a major threat to U.S. security and leadership in the world, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Thursday.

“The United States must be strong at home in order to be strong abroad,” Clinton said in remarks on the Obama administration’s new national security doctrine, which was made public on Thursday.

“We cannot sustain this level of deficit financing and debt without losing our influence, without being constrained in the tough decisions we have to make,” Clinton said, adding that it was time to “make the national security case about reducing the deficit and getting the debt under control.”

Clinton emphasized controlling the budget deficit, saying it was “personally painful” for her to see the yawning U.S. spending gap after her husband, former President Bill Clinton, ended his second term in 2001 with budget surpluses.

“That was not just an exercise in budgeteering. It was linked to a very clear understanding of what the United States needed to do to get positioned to lead for the foreseeable future, far into the 21st century,” she said.

Clinton said that as a Democratic U.S. senator from New York during the administration of former President George W. Bush, she had voted against “tax cuts that were never sustainable, wars that were never paid for” — but without success.

“Now we’re paying the piper,” she said.

Clinton in February blamed “outrageous” advice from Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan in part for the grim U.S. deficit picture.

Obama has formed an 18-member bipartisan commission to study ways to reduce the U.S. deficit projected at about $1.5 trillion this year and bring long-term debt to manageable levels. It aims to find $229 billion in savings in 2015 to bring the deficit down to 3 percent of the overall economy from about 10 percent now.

Then why doesn't he stop spending so damn much money?

While arguing for tighter overall economic discipline, Clinton said it was no time for the United States to roll back spending on international diplomatic and development programs, particularly as civilian agencies take up more of the work in Iraq and Afghanistan formerly done by the military.

“In order for us to meet the obligations that are now being asked of our civilian personnel, it costs money,” Clinton said, adding that it was time to look at an overall “national security budget” that would encompass funding for diplomatic, development and military operations.

“You cannot look at a defense budget, a State Department budget and a USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development) budget without defense overwhelming the combined efforts of the other two and without us falling back into the old stovepipes that I think are no longer relevant for the challenges of today,” Clinton said.

But at the same time, we need to be finished with these wars so most of our troops can come home. The Iraqis and the Afghans have had ample time to get their sht together. They shouldn't need us to babysit them.