Yo, Mitt, Borrowing Money From China Is Good for America, Not Bad

“…China is an easy bogeyman for U.S. politicians, because it’s an ocean away and it’s still run by the Communist Party. But the economic threat posed by China is routinely exaggerated. Investors in China do hold about $1.2 trillion in U.S. government debt, but that’s only about 7.3 percent of all U.S. debt, and 10.3 percent of debt held by the public. (Government agencies such as the Federal Reserve hold about $5 trillion of America’s $16 trillion in total debt.) Japan holds nearly as much U.S. debt as China does, but nobody ever complains about Americans being in hock to the Japanese.

The size of America’s national debt is itself a problem, because Washington depends on borrowed money for too much of its everyday expenditures. But that’s the borrower’s fault, not the lender’s. “The whole thing is silly,” says Boudreaux. “Blaming the Chinese lets the people creating the debt off the hook. And that’s Congress.”

Mitt knows all this, he’s just a liar pandering to the ignorance of his base.