Real debt solutions needed after supercommittee's failure
- By Liu Chang
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Xinhua, November 22, 2011
Once again, the United States has failed to disarm the ticking debt bomb that once brought the world's sole superpower to the brink of default. A U.S. congressional supercommittee conceded Monday it could not agree on how to slash mounting federal deficits.
Though major credit rating firms like Standard & Poor's and Moody's Investors Service said they would not immediately downgrade U.S. credit rating, the miscarriage of an agreement to cut unsustainable U.S. deficits would definitely overshadow the already flimsy market confidence around the world.
The world has still not forgotten how Democrats and Republicans unashamedly scrambled for partisan self-interest till the last moment this August before agreeing to raise America's debt ceiling and avoid a default and federal government shut-down, disregarding the dire consequences that a possible U.S. default might bring to other economies.
Today, with a bearish world economic recovery waiting anxiously for the world's largest economy to step up and shoulder its due responsibility to help spur on strong, sustainable and balanced growth worldwide, America's nonsensical domestic political wrestling has proved its inability to do that.
U.S. politicians have never shied from lecturing other countries about global responsibility, and now it is high time they showed a sense of true global leadership.
The United States has to deeply appreciate the fact that, as the world's largest economy and issuer of the dominant international reserve currency, its economic stability and future well-being have been closely interwoven with that of the world.
It's no secret that it is the general election to be held late next year that has rendered the two major U.S. political parties unable to reach a compromise, as they are focused on grabbing as much political gain as possible before the poll opens.
Yet U.S. politicians need to know that, as the world turns ever more globalized, the demarcation between domestic affairs and foreign issues becomes more blurred, and every decision they have made or are yet to make has a genuine global impact.
When President Barack Obama told the world in his inaugural address that the United States was "ready to lead once more," he had to know that assuming leadership starts with fulfilling responsibilities.
Washington's political elites, both Democrats and Republicans, are obligated to muster the courage to defuse the ticking debt bomb and start to show the world they have the wisdom and determination not to further jeopardize the fragile global economic recovery.
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