John Kasich: It’s finally time to tackle the national debt

John Kasich is a former governor of Ohio, former congressman representing the state, and director at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. He recently wrote an opinion piece for The Hill, an excerpt of which is below.

More than a few people have said that I’m the boy who cries wolf. The reason is my decades-long concern with the ever-growing U.S. government debt.

For years — in Congress and as a governor — I have sounded the alarm about our federal government’s corrosive habit of spending more than it takes in and its need to borrow ever more money to plug that gap. Today, the federal government budget deficit is $1.8 trillion, and the outstanding government bonds and other forms of borrowing — the national debt — totals $36 trillion.

And yet the republic still stands, I am constantly reminded. “John, what’s the big deal? A little debt doesn’t hurt. The government can handle it.”

Until it can’t. And when things finally turn for the worse, the debt will be the wolf that doesn’t just eat me, but all of us.

Read the entire piece here.

Published works by members or staff of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget do not necessarily reflect the views of all members or staff of the Committee.