How Our National Debt Jeopardizes Families’ Futures
Lawmakers focused on their reelection in a few months or years care little about whether the United States faces economic stagnation decades from now.Lawmakers focused on their reelection in a few months or years care little about whether the United States faces economic stagnation decades from now.Eileen Gu Indicts Birthright Citizenship And Our Entire Immigration Orthodoxy
Gu embodies what our immigration orthodoxy promotes: an America where citizens of the world can enrich themselves with no loyalties attached.The US-Japan alliance keeps China from bullying the world into higher prices
China’s aggression in the Indo-Pacific no longer comes in bursts. It has become dangerous and systematic for America.
A recent long-range patrol by Chinese forces, conducted alongside Russia, prompted Japan to scramble fighter jets. It marked the latest in a string of incidents after months of heightened Chinese military activity around the Senkaku Islands.
If Washington and Tokyo keep strengthening this partnership, they can make the Indo-Pacific more difficult for Beijing to bully and far more stable for everyone who depends on it.
These shows of force don’t happen by accident. China uses them to normalize military pressure, probe red lines, and test the unity of U.S.-led alliances.
This latest episode also made one thing clear, at least: The Trump administration is watching closely.
In a visible show of solidarity with Tokyo, U.S. strategic bombers joined Japanese fighter aircraft for high-profile drills. Days earlier, Chinese military aircraft conducted takeoffs and landings inside Japan’s air defense identification zone and shadowed Japanese aircraft with their radar off near Okinawa. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s State Department expressed concern and reaffirmed its commitment to a “strong and more united” U.S.-Japan alliance.
Washington increasingly recognizes what Tokyo has understood for years: China’s behavior doesn’t just destabilize the region. It challenges the security order that has kept the Indo-Pacific from tipping into open conflict.
That reality puts a premium on reliable partnerships. No partnership matters more than the U.S.-Japan alliance.
Nowhere does that matter more than Taiwan. China’s large-scale military exercises, dubbed Justice Mission 2025, have pushed tensions in the Taiwan Strait to the highest levels in decades. Beijing aims to intimidate Taipei, warn off “external interference,” and alter the status quo through pressure rather than persuasion.
The Trump administration’s National Security Strategy arrived in that environment. While headlines still focus on Europe and the Middle East, the document makes the administration’s priorities clear: The Indo-Pacific remains central to U.S. strategy.
The NSS describes the Indo-Pacific as a critical economic hub that accounts for nearly half of global GDP. It commits the United States to a “free and open” Indo-Pacific by securing sea lanes and upholding international law.
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That framework didn’t start in Washington. Japan first advanced the concept of a free and open Indo-Pacific, and the region later adopted it through partnerships such as the Quad — the informal grouping of the United States, Japan, India, and Australia.
Rather than announcing a new direction, the NSS reinforces a familiar one: Alliances form the core of deterring China. Unlike the Trump playbook in Ukraine, the administration treats alliances as the bedrock of Indo-Pacific security against Beijing’s expanding military reach.
Japan sits at the heart of that network.
China pressures Japan across its waters and airspace, making Tokyo a frontline state. Japan also serves as the United States’ indispensable partner in the region, with basing, interoperability, and shared strategy that no other ally can match at the same scale. Under new conservative leadership, Japan has begun acting with urgency.
Japan’s defense minister, Shinjiro Koizumi, has emphasized that urgency, warning that the country now faces its most severe security environment since World War II. Japan has deepened coordination with the U.S. and other like-minded partners while strengthening its military capabilities by accelerating security reforms and easing restrictions on defense equipment transfers.
Japan has also moved up its plan to raise defense spending to 2% of GDP — from 2027 to now. That headline matters less than where the money goes.
Tokyo has prioritized capabilities suited for a long-term, high-risk environment: unmanned aerial vehicles, expanded surveillance platforms, and submarines equipped with vertical-launch missile systems.
RELATED: Hypersonic missiles are the new arms race. Can America catch up?
Japan’s objective looks straightforward. It aims to become a more capable military partner that complements U.S. forces rather than relying on them by default. That shift aligns with President Trump’s demand that allies reduce dependence on American power by strengthening their own defense industries and readiness.
The U.S.-Japan alliance has also moved beyond drills and declarations toward defense-industrial cooperation. Expanded maintenance and repair coordination, along with eased export controls, have begun laying the groundwork for a durable security partnership.
This collaboration marks a shift from rhetoric to endurance. Aligning strategy with industrial capacity won’t eliminate risk. It will raise the cost of Chinese coercion and reduce the chances that Beijing miscalculates.
Koizumi has stressed that 80 years after World War II, the U.S.-Japan alliance still embodies reconciliation and remains the best instrument to deter China’s rising aggression.
If Washington and Tokyo keep strengthening this partnership — in capability, production, and resolve — they can make the Indo-Pacific more difficult for Beijing to bully and far more stable for everyone who depends on it.
Trump’s agenda faces a midterm kill switch in 2026
Ten months ahead of November’s midterms, political and economic crosscurrents are colliding. Which of these conflicting trends prevail will greatly shape the next two years. And possibly even longer.
Midterm elections are always important. Besides gauging the country’s political mood, they have proven integral to maintaining America’s political equilibrium.
For good or ill, incumbent presidents and their party own the economy. The question is: Which economy will Republicans own?
They are the “ebb” to the “flow” of America’s political tide. Historically, every four years a large tide of voters go to the polls and elect a president. Then every two years, the large voter flow ebbs back, and the president’s party suffers accordingly.
This midterm is particularly important to Trump because he has proven susceptible to being baited by his opponents. After 2018, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) returned to the House speakership and unrelentingly harassed Trump over the last two years of his first term. These distractions and obstructions — especially during COVID — were undoubtedly a factor in Trump’s narrow 2020 Electoral College defeat.
Today’s political crosscurrents are pronounced. We know the president’s party historically loses seats. The last two two-term presidents, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, suffered congressional losses averaging 22 House seats and 7.5 Senate seats.
Such losses would hand Democrats control of Congress, giving them a House majority larger than Republicans’ narrow edge and a Senate majority bigger than the GOP’s current six-seat margin. Such outcomes would end Trump’s legislative agenda, and Democrats could set their own. To understand the potential impact, play back the recent funding impasse when Democrats shut the government down for the longest period ever — despite lacking control of either chamber.
While Trump would be able to veto Democratic legislation and Republican numbers would be ample to uphold his vetoes, Democrats would have a formal hand in shaping the political agenda. This could greatly help their 2028 presidential prospects.
RELATED: Republicans are letting Democrats lie about affordability
Current politics are blunting the historical midterm flow, however. Trump is divisive, with just a 43.4% favorable rating; however, his job approval rating of 43.1% is higher than Obama’s (42.4%) at the same point in his second term. Further, Democrats are in abysmal shape with just a 32.5% favorability rating.
The current 2026 political map is also favorable to Republicans. While they have more seats (22 to 13) to protect in the Senate, the toss-up seats are evenly split: Republicans with Maine and North Carolina; Democrats with Georgia and Michigan. Mid-decade House redistricting efforts are also likely to favor Republicans somewhat; if the Supreme Court should allow race to be disregarded in drawing House districts when it rules on the Louisiana case currently before it, then even more redistricting could occur and amount to an even greater Republican advantage.
Today’s economic crosscurrents are equally pronounced. For good or ill, incumbent presidents and their party own the economy. The question is: Which economy will Republicans own?
At the micro level, the growing issue is “affordability.” Nationally, this is an overhang of inflation that surged during Biden’s administration and peaked at 9.1% in June 2022 — a 40-year high.
Locally, affordability played well in New York City (which has been plagued by Democratic policies of rent control and excessive taxation, regulation, and litigation) in 2025’s mayoral race. It also played well in Virginia, where it linked powerfully into the record-long government shutdown. Democrats are therefore seizing on the issue with some success — particularly in the establishment media — and are trying to nationalize it.
At the macro level, the economy is a different story. Despite “expert” predictions that Trump’s tariffs, green agenda rollback, attack on illegal immigration, and reduction in government would combine to wreck the economy, the reverse has occurred. In Trump’s first two full quarters in office, GDP is averaging over 4% growth: up 3.8% in the second quarter and 4.3% in the third. Inflation has also been moderate — 2.7% in November — certainly not the spike experts predicted and a far cry from the previous four years.
RELATED: Conservatives face a choice in ’26: realignment or extinction
So politically, depending on your perspective, Republicans look to outperform historically. Their Senate majority looks safe for now, with the chance that Republicans could even gain a seat or two. By contrast, Republicans’ House majority looks vulnerable; this could be offset slightly by current mid-decade redistricting efforts. Yet even just half the average loss of the last two administrations in their second midterms would mean an 11-seat swing and a 226-209 Democratic majority.
Economically, the question is whether the micro or the macro prevails. Can the micro become a national mood outside Democratic areas, or will the macro of strong GDP growth and moderate inflation have time to prevail? Expect political midterm fortunes to respond accordingly.
What is certain is that the midterms will shape the last two years of Trump’s second term. And possibly determine who will run and who will win the presidency in 2028.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.
When a ‘too big to fail’ America meets a government too broke to bail it out
I’ve been titanically bearish on America for years. Sorry. I can do math.
The United States owes more than $38 trillion. That alone makes the balance sheet hopeless. The debt is insurmountable.
America’s GDP in 2024 was $29.2 trillion, meaning the debt exceeds 130% of what we produce in a year. If this were a business, every financial adviser would tell you to file Chapter 11 and salvage what you can.
Washington keeps adding another trillion to the tab roughly every 100 days. As the debt climbs, interest payments climb faster. The country now spins in a debt spiral that ends only one way. Game over.
The more the world moves away from the dollar, the more tens of trillions of unwanted dollars come flooding home. You haven’t seen anything like real devaluation yet.
Then comes the $210 trillion in future unfunded liabilities — mostly Social Security and Medicare. Those numbers don’t pencil out in any universe.
Underneath all of it sits a sinking currency. The dollar lost 87% of its value since we abandoned the gold standard in 1971. For decades, the petrodollar arrangement held the world in our system by forcing oil purchases through the U.S. currency. Saudi Arabia let that mandate expire last year. Global energy deals immediately began shifting to other currencies.
The more the world moves away from the dollar, the more tens of trillions of unwanted dollars come flooding home. You haven’t seen anything like real devaluation yet.
To fund our binge, Washington must keep selling treasuries. But foreign buyers are losing interest. Rates rise. The government buys its own debt just to keep markets from buckling. The Cayman Islands now holds $1.85 trillion — the largest single foreign share and rising fast. Treasury officials tried to obscure the numbers. None of it signals stability.
Meanwhile, our economy rests on an absurdly fragile foundation: 70% consumption. Seven out of 10 dollars depend on Americans buying things they can no longer afford. Household debt hit a record $18.6 trillion — nearly two-thirds of GDP. Families now pay down debt instead of fueling growth.
Shrinking consumption means a shrinking economy. Shrinking economy means shrinking tax revenue. Combine that with a weakening dollar and the picture becomes darker still.
Enter artificial intelligence, the accelerant. AI threatens tens of millions of jobs within years, wiping out income and collapsing the consumption model even faster. A government facing falling revenue and exploding obligations cannot pretend to stay solvent.
Some cling to fantasies like universal basic income. With what money? The same government already $210 trillion short on existing promises? Please.
This all points toward an economic crash far larger than 2008. Washington froze that crisis with $29 trillion in bailouts — money it didn’t have then either. We conjured it and shoved it onto the national debt.
That option is gone.
Today the government sits too deep in debt, with a weaker dollar and fewer global buyers. And the next crisis won’t hit one sector. It hits everything:
• Record mortgage debt: $13.1 trillion
• Record credit-card debt: $1.2 trillion
• Collapsing commercial real estate: $4.9 trillion
• Big Tech borrowing hundreds of billions to inflate an AI bubble
OpenAI’s Sam Altman already expects an eventual government bailout for AI’s collapse.
RELATED: When the AI bubble bursts, guess who pays
Total U.S. debt — public and private — hit $102.2 trillion in 2024. Washington cannot rescue a single major sector, let alone all of them. The national debt was $10 trillion during bailout 2008. It’s four times that now. The dollar buys less. Foreign creditors show less patience.
So who steps in next time? Who buys the treasuries? Who absorbs the losses?
No one. Not abroad. Not at home. Nowhere on this planet.
That leaves Washington with only one move: Print tens of trillions in new dollars and hand them to itself — more IOIs (as opposed to IOUs) stacked on a pile already ready to topple.
And that printing wave will obliterate whatever value the dollar still holds.
Think the dollar’s fallen far? You haven’t seen anything yet.
No, The Conservative Answer To America’s Affordability Crisis Isn’t Just To ‘Move’
'Conservatism,' as a political ideology, has failed to conserve anything meaningful, and that's a serious problem.Dr. Oz exposes the nonprofit lie at the heart of US health care
American health care is a paradox. We spend more than any nation in history — nearly 20% of our GDP — yet our outcomes remain stubbornly mediocre.
New hospitals rise like monuments to excess. Their parking lots fill with luxury cars. Tax dollars pour in from every level of government. Private spending remains sky-high. But while the profits flow, patient satisfaction and results don’t keep pace.
At a bare minimum, nonprofit hospitals should be required to deliver real value — quality care, satisfied patients, and meaningful charity work.
That’s because the system doesn’t reward quality. It rewards short-term financial performance.
Health care costs keep rising faster than inflation. Voters resist higher taxes, so deficits explode. The federal government now routinely runs annual shortfalls exceeding 6% of GDP — even during boom times. Something’s got to give.
Enter Dr. Mehmet Oz. Once a fixture on daytime TV, now head of Medicare and Medicaid Services under President Trump, Oz has zeroed in on the real source of bloat: hospital executives enriching themselves under the guise of nonprofit care.
Oz recently urged Americans to review tax filings and publicly “shame” hospital administrators pulling down massive salaries. He’s right to sound the alarm.
Most hospitals claim nonprofit status — but their leadership rakes in pay packages in the tens of millions, complete with bonuses, stock perks, and golden parachutes. Those compensation schemes only make sense because the IRS grants nonprofits huge tax breaks. And the standards for maintaining that status? Laughably weak.
As a result, the federal government forfeits tens of billions of dollars annually — revenue that could support real health care reform or reduce the deficit.
Consider Nazareth Hospital in Philadelphia. It belongs to Trinity Health Mid-Atlantic, a large nonprofit chain. Trinity’s CEO earns over $1.4 million a year. Yet, Nazareth carries a dismal one-star Medicare rating, charges high prices, and provides very little charity care. Despite funneling more than $160 million annually through its doors, it contributes almost nothing in taxes — while local, state, and federal governments foot the bill for many of its patients.
It’s a rigged system: Taxpayers pay, executives profit, and patients suffer.
RELATED: Medicaid for millions, misery for the middle class
Dr. Oz is asking the right questions. Where does the money go? Who benefits most? Are we getting anything close to our money’s worth?
At a bare minimum, nonprofit hospitals should be required to deliver real value — quality care, satisfied patients, and meaningful charity work. When they fail, they should lose the privileges that come with tax-exempt status.
Congress must act. Update the laws. Close the loopholes. Scrutinize executive pay. Tie compensation to performance. And most importantly, re-center the system on patients — not the almighty dollar.
Thanks goes to Dr. Oz for breaking the silence. The American people deserve transparency, accountability, and a health care system that serves them — not the bureaucrats and fat cats feeding off the public trough.
‘Better Than Expected’ Economic Data Shreds Remaining Credibility Of Propaganda Press
For all the media's breathless warnings and dire forecasts, the numbers show the economy isn't collapsing under Trump's tariffs.Report: America’s Debt Situation Will Soon Be Worse Than Right After World War II
Our country cannot get its fiscal house in order unless and until it starts slowing the explosion of Medicare spending.Today's top stories
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