When It Comes To Spending, Rand Paul Is a RINO

[Sensei]

There's an old saying "If the bank loans you $10k, they own you. If the bank loans you $10M, you own the bank."
As long as we have nukes and the baddest military on the planet, our debt doesn't matter because nobody can "collect" without mutually assured destruction (either militarily, economically or both).
Every major economy in the world depends on maintaining the status quo, even if a superpower "defaults" on their debt it'll never be known outside of a few people.

There is a small problem in your analysis. Most of our debt is owed to ourselves, not to foreign entities. In addition, our military is already deteriorating and will help us about as much as the Soviet military helped the communist regime in 1991 when it went bankrupt. The threat is not a Chinese invasion, but civil unrest when a loaf of bread cost $100...

[Guerrero]

I may have been hasty in my assessment:

http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...t-crisis-right

[blues]

I may have been hasty in my assessment:

http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...t-crisis-right

Yep. Rand Paul is still a politician but he's come a long way, imho.

There was a time when I wanted to knock that possum off his head. Now, even though I know he is a politician, with all the baggage that implies, I find him someone worthy of at least listening to. As the writer said, he knew it might not make a difference but at least he held feet to the fire and people are talking about it. (And he got a little pork into the bill as well.)

We could use more elected official who had more than just a passing relationship with the truth, even if we won't always agree.

[OlongJohnson]

The threat is not a Chinese invasion, but civil unrest when a loaf of bread cost $100...

What worries me is the Chinese applying the tactic that Jefferson outlined as a strategy to get the land away from the indians.

Back to Republicans:

Bush did the same damn thing. Except that time, he inherited an actual surplus and blew it all to hell on purpose, right out of the gate. Before the tech crash drew back tax revenue, before 9/11 led to a lot of spending. The bailouts that conservatives alternately criticize Obama for, or if they are credited for the recovery we've had, such as it is, point out that they were really a Bush plan, were indeed really a Bush plan.

Before Reagan, we had stagflation, but we didn't have an out-of-control debt balloon.

[SunTzu]

I like Rand as well as Massie and Amash.

[critter]

What worries me is the Chinese applying the tactic that Jefferson outlined as a strategy to get the land away from the indians.

Back to Republicans:

Bush did the same damn thing. Except that time, he inherited an actual surplus and blew it all to hell on purpose, right out of the gate. Before the tech crash drew back tax revenue, before 9/11 led to a lot of spending. The bailouts that conservatives alternately criticize Obama for, or if they are credited for the recovery we've had, such as it is, point out that they were really a Bush plan, were indeed really a Bush plan.

Before Reagan, we had stagflation, but we didn't have an out-of-control debt balloon.

No disagreement here.

There's is a difference between owing a trillion $1 gold coins vs a trillion bits on a computer, or a trillion pieces of paper - especially if your particular bits and paper is required for the world to do business. With the latter, a growing economy can absorb some or even all (so the quite simplified theory goes) of the debt and continue functioning indefinitely as long as everyone plays along. I make no claim of understanding all the economic games that are played with magic money. I do know they play a lot of them.