Senator Judd Gregg, says the US doesn’t have the economic where-with-all to even join the European Union:
“We won’t even be able to get into the EU if we wanted to,” Gregg said this morning on MSNBC, “because our government is so large and so huge.”
The European Union’s Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) adopted in 1997 requires a budget deficit to be less than three percent, and requires a national debt beneath 60 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
As Gregg further points out, we’re getting dressed down by the French:
“We’ve been lectured by France on the fact that we’re not fiscally responsible right now,” Gregg, the would-be commerce secretary, noted with incredulity.
We’ve also been lectured by the Russians and the Chinese about our excessive borrowing and spending.
With the size of the deficits and borrowing that President Obama is proposing, it’s obvious that we will no longer be an economic super power. The EU is saying we couldn’t even join a club that includes Western versions of Socialism. If we can’t join their club, where does it leave us? I hear Mugabe, Chavez, Castro and Kim Jong-ll are looking for members!