China Says U.S. Needs Less Debt

China has a clear message to the U.S., "Stop running up the deficit!"

This clip from a wonderful article by Robert Scheer tells the story well:
"China has a huge amount of investment in the United States, mainly in the form of Treasury bonds. We are concerned about the security of our financial assets" was the way China's assistant finance minister put it. Briefing reporters at the US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, he added, "We sincerely hope the US fiscal deficit will be reduced, year after year." Quite sincerely, one suspects, given a US budget shortfall this year that is slated to reach $1.85 trillion.

So how do we balance the fact that our biggest creditor, the Chinese government, is asking us to reduce our deficit to sustainable amounts while we are considering a health care plan that requires more than $1 trillion in additional debt?

I know that health care is imperfect. I know that we need to continue to work on solutions. But stating that there is no better time to take on more debt for the reform sounds to me as if we are trying to borrow our way to success.

If you had a friend, who owed you $50,000, tell you that he would be in a better position to pay you back if you would loan him another $5,000 to fix a few things that really needed fixing, would you believe him? What if you knew he couldn't pay you now and was losing more cash every month. How would you feel? That is how the Chinese must feel today. And that makes us the bum friend...