The United States of America faces serious problem

January 31,  2023

The United States has many problems with which to deal. Problems with the government. Problems with other countries. Problems within society. 

The federal government itself is a serious problem. Yes, we have managed to keep going with things as off the rails as they are. But if these problems continue to grow, our lives will become progressively less pleasant.

We need the federal government to be returned to its proper size and scope. Over the years and decades, the separation of powers and the system of checks and balances, so thoughtfully designed by the Founders, have been weakened, and the balance between the three branches of our government — Legislative, Executive, and Judicial — has been heavily altered. 

Actions by the Supreme Court, the Congress and the many US presidents have gradually shifted the government’s balance, and given the it much more power and a broader reach than intended.

The Executive Branch has become far more powerful than it should be, with unelected bureaucrats in administrative agencies implementing regulations with the force of law, rather than the Congress making those laws and the Judiciary ruling on their constitutionality and legality.

The National Debt continues to grow. Every year since the 1950s has seen an increase in the Debt, regardless of which political party the sitting President represented. As of December, 2022, the National Debt stood at approximately $31.42 trillion. According to Statista.com, the national Debt in 2021 worked out to $80,885 per person. It has increased since then.

Some of that growth resulted from additional funding for crisis situations, and some of it merely from the desire for additional spending without having the funds to pay for it.

As with every business and household, government spending should not exceed income. And borrowing when extra money is needed has to be paid back. Our government has not been doing this.

To raise required funds, we first need a realistic budget, based upon only the absolute necessities of the government, and then we need a sensible and fair system of taxation to raise those funds. 

Taxes should not be punishingly high and treat everyone equally. They should be high enough to fund the needed functions of a lean and efficient government.

The Libertarian Republic published an article in 2015 titled “Top 10 Government Agencies We Should Eliminate Immediately.” The article focused on the magazine’s opinion of elements of these agencies that exceed the boundaries of a limited government like that set forth in the U.S. Constitution, and which infringe on the personal liberties of Americans.

Perhaps this perspective does not match that of many or most Americans, but it paints a libertarian picture of just how much our government has expanded.

Those in denial of just how horrible a job the government is doing to stop illegal immigration on the southern border tell us the immigration system is to blame and needs to be revised. But if the government would merely follow the guidelines of that system, we would have far fewer deadly drugs, human trafficking, criminal immigrants and other things coming across the border each day.

And then we have issues involving both China and Russia. 

Some say that we are headed into a conflict with Russia over our support of Ukraine against the brutal and unprovoked Russian war. The more we support Ukraine, they say, the greater the chance that Russia will regard us as an enemy, leading to a nuclear conflict.

And, there is criticism both of the amount of money spent for Ukraine that some believe could and should be used for problems here at home, and for the idea that we really don’t know how Ukraine is using those funds. Further criticism comes from the idea that by sending Ukraine military weaponry that we are weakening our own level of military readiness.

China has made no secret of its desire to replace the U.S. as the world’s dominant economy. However, one Simon Baptist, global chief economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit, told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” that “I think it’s very unlikely that ... China will get to U.S. levels of GDP per capita — that’s our measure of wealth — for at least the next 50 years if ever.”

That may be true, or not, but it does not relieve the tensions between the two nations over Covid, the fentanyl crisis, and economic issues. So many things that the U.S. once produced, or could now produce, are strongholds of the Chinese economy, and could be used against us.

President Joe Biden weighed in on this topic. “I see stiff competition with China. China has an overall goal — and I don’t criticize them for the goal,” he said. “But they have an overall goal to become the leading country, the wealthiest country in the world and the most powerful country in the world.  That’s not gonna happen on my watch.” Time will tell.

There will always be problems and things not going as planned or hoped. But if we respond to all of them with the same degree of disinterest as the Biden administration has shown for the border, energy, and the other current problems, the country will pay a very heavy price.

China’s aggression against America is currently our greatest threat

In July of this year, Dan Blumenthal wrote in National Review that “The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) long-term strategic objective is to displace the United States as the world’s most powerful country and create a new world order favorable to China’s authoritarian brand of politics, or its ‘socialist market economy,’”  

Today the Chinese economy is one of the strongest in the world, and its military is one of the largest and best equipped. China has stolen our technology, and uses it to get a leg up economically and militarily. Virtually every aspect of our lives has been infiltrated by CCP operatives, including in academia, the news media and politics.

We know that Communist China has tried to recruit American politicians, overtly or covertly. Congressional Democrats like California’s Senator Diane Feinstein and Representative Eric Swalwell are two who have been targeted. Swalwell’s Chinese friend Fang Fang had suspicious ties to the Chinese government, and Feinstein had a potential Chinese intelligence official working in her San Francisco office. 

Who knows how many others there might be? And who knows how much sensitive information they accessed, or how much influence they may have had on elected officials?

In academia, Chinese infiltrators can be found on college campuses involved in academic affairs and also creating dissent among impressionable young minds. Yet, the Chinese have successfully gained access to government research work at some of our colleges and universities.

None of that means, by the way, that all Chinese in the country are working against us.

Furthermore, CNBC reported that China has purchased 10 large American businesses. Among them are Smithfield Foods, AMC, GE Appliances, the Waldorf Astoria, Strategic Hotels and Resorts, and Motorola Mobility, and attempted to buy Forbes magazine.

Interestingly, Forbes magazine reported that “Since 2016, a company owned by Xinjiang-based real estate tycoon Sun Guangxin had spent an estimated $110 million buying up land in Texas’ Val Verde County,” which is on the Mexican border. Sun planned to use 15,000 acres for a proposed 46-turbine wind power project, called Blue Hills Wind Development.

The Forbes story said that critics of the project “alleged that a wind farm controlled by a Chinese company would seek to tamper with, or even shut down, the embattled Texas energy grid; some speculated the turbines would be used to gather military intelligence on the activities of nearby Laughlin Air Force Base.” 

Forbes also reported that in response to this the Texas legislature passed a bill aimed at preventing “business entities associated with ‘hostile nations’ from accessing the Texas electricity grid and other pieces of ‘critical infrastructure,’ including computer networks and waste treatment systems.”

A Chinese conglomerate has bought up more than 146,000 acres of farmland across the United States, worth about a half-billion dollars, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And now there is news that Rawlings will move a company it owns that produces products for Major League Baseball from Minnesota to China.

FBI Director Christopher Wray addressed the Hudson Institute last year. In his opening remarks, he said: “The greatest long-term threat to our nation’s information and intellectual property, and to our economic vitality, is the counterintelligence and economic espionage threat from China. It’s a threat to our economic security — and by extension, to our national security.”

“It’s the people of the United States who are the victims of what amounts to Chinese theft on a scale so massive that it represents one of the largest transfers of wealth in human history,” he said. “In 2017, the Chinese military conspired to hack Equifax and made off with the sensitive personal information of 150 million Americans” — nearly half of our population — and he noted that this wasn’t a standalone incident.

He also said that the FBI “is opening a new China-related counterintelligence case about every 10 hours,” and that “at this very moment, China is working to compromise American health care organizations, pharmaceutical companies, and academic institutions conducting essential COVID-19 research.”

“When considering the threat Communist China poses to our nation all one has to do is look on the streets of America in recent years,” wrote D.W. Wilbur on Townhall.com. “Much of the civil strife and unrest that we have been [experiencing] and continue to experience has the fingerprints of Communist China all over it.”

And then, “ANTIFA, BLM, and any other leftist organizations are most certainly quietly influenced — if not outright infiltrated and getting their marching orders from Communist China.”

The Biden administration — with the porous southern border; its colossal early blunders in Afghanistan, and the recent drone strike on a supposed enemy that turned out to kill civilians; and the foolish behavior that alienates allies like France and strengthens our challengers — is weakening the U.S. and our military.

And then there is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, who visited Great Britain. After listing some of the problems China is causing globally, but not America’s China aggression problems, she said what is the most critical thing involving China. “But we have to work together on Climate. Climate is an over-riding issue.” 

Are climate worries more important than national security? Congressional Democrats and the Biden administration seemingly don’t notice those.