The Dollar is in Danger

Kudos to my colleague Ed Royce (R-CA) for sounding the alarm on the international battle to downgrade the dollar. I've said for months now that our penchant for massive spending and our sky-rocketing debt will come back to bite us and Congressman Royce provides evidence seconding that notion.

As he mentions in his recent post, the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development has issued a report calling for the U.S. dollar to be replaced as the global reserve currency. This isn't the first we've heard of this. Other nations, such as China, Russia, India, and Brazil, have been beating this drum for several months now. But this marks the first time the U.N. has jumped on board.

Unfortunately, our government is giving them their best rationalization for these ludicrous proposals. After all, our nation's debt, which is the money owed by our government, currently sits at the highest it's been in our nation's history, at $11.7 trillion. Couple that with our rising deficit which has well exceeded $1 trillion (another record) and is on its way to $2 trillion fast, and our debt becomes a far less attractive purchase to other nations. China’s even voiced those concerns publicly. Higher interest rates will be necessary to sell our debt abroad. And we will soon be confronted with the growing threat of rising inflation - a devastating sign that our nation's economic fortunes are heading in the wrong direction.

This is real money we're talking about here, and your future. Fiscal responsibility must not be a campaign slogan. It must be a fundamental tenant of our governing philosophy and economic well-being. The welfare of our children and grandchildren depends on it.