Is America Spiraling into Decline?

In February 2020, Virginia Aabram published an article in The Daily Signal that discussed the possibility of United States collapsing around Independence Day, July 4, 2026. The question came from author and syndicated columnist Cal Thomas in a presentation titled “America’s Expiration Date” given at The Heritage Foundation. 

Thomas based his Feb. 6 speech on his new book of the same name, which examines eight of the greatest empires in world history and how they tended to spiral into decline after about 250 years in power.

By that metric, America could begin a theoretical decline by about 2026, predicated on the country’s founding on July 4, 1776.

“While many like to comfort themselves that America is different, or even uniquely blessed by God, there’s no proof that we will escape the fate of other nations that one time believed the same about themselves,” Thomas said….

After examining the historical precedent of former global superpowers, such as the Roman, Persian, Ottoman, and British empires, Thomas claims in his book that certain markers of cultural decline precede political decline. The book’s subtitle is “The Fall of Empires and Superpowers and the Future of the United States.”

“Our past challenges were met with a resolve born out of a shared ethic and moral sense that is today in rapid retreat,” Thomas said.

One of the most disturbing of those markers, Thomas said, is the casual devaluation of human life. He cited not only the large number of abortions that take place every day in the United States, but al the daily deadly shootings in the inner cities….

Despite the warnings that America is edging toward decline, Thomas is still hopeful that there’s time to reverse the damage and ensure that July Fourth, 2026, is a celebration of the 250^th birthday of the country, not a funeral.

Recently, Victor Davis Hanson had an article in The Daily Signal discussing the debt of the United States and how it could become a crisis for the nation. He first noted that Moody’s, the bond evaluator, made a move that has not been made since 1917: Moody’s “lowered the credit rating of the United States government from Aaa to Aa1.” 

Hanson mentioned that Moody’s did not make this move “during the 2008 meltdown … the Great Depression … 9/11 … during the Biden years when we borrowed $7 trillion,” but they “did it now.”

At the same time, Jerome Powell, the head of the Fed, will not lower interest rates even though there’s been a good jobs report, a good inflation report, a good corporate profits report. Gross domestic product is gonna be evaluated, apparently, upward and there’s been low energy cost. That mortgage is still 4.25% Fed rate to 4.5%. And that means mortgages are still 6.5%, 7%. And that housing market is slowing as a result….

So, the budget deficit, for all the talk of DOGE and for all the talk of fiscal sobriety, might not actually go down. And if it doesn’t go down, the Fed may not lower rates. And if it doesn’t lower rates, then you still are stuck with a trillion dollars a year in interest payments. That’s killing us.

So, you’ve got to get that down. And the way Trump has to do it is just two ways: Either cut the budget or raise taxes – which will strangle the economy – or continue the tax cuts. And hope two things: that the tax cuts – the extension – will prime the economy, along with cheap interest rates.

And the question that we all have now: Is cutting taxes on tips, is cutting taxes on Social Security, is cutting taxes on first responder, etc. – all of which Trump has mentioned – is that really stimulus as opposed to, say, accelerated depreciation investment for businesses?

I don’t know the answer. But I do know, as a historian, that if you do not cut the deficit and the national debt and you have bond raters like Moody’s or the Fed that will not lower interest rates, you’re going to be in a crisis.

And in the antiquity – from Greece and Rome, through the Middle Ages, to the Renaissance – there were three ways of dealing with unsustainable debt and are not good. They’re all civilizational killers.

No. 1: As the Weimar Republic did in Germany, you pay back what you owe in cheap dollars. They inflated the marks. And [bankruptcy] really helped cause the depression. You can do that, pay back the $37 trillion in inflated dollars. It’s not a good option.

No. 2: You can confiscate private wealth. People do that all the time throughout history. That destroys the legitimacy of the government. And it makes private investors hide their money,

… Something like that … never works. It never worked in Athens. It never worked in Rome. It never worked in Renaissance Italy.

The third is the most drastic and it’s a killer too and we’ve seen countries in South America try it. And that’s to renounce the debt. Just say: You know what? All you bondholders, you guys have U.S. savings bonds – 40% of them abroad, you know, here in America – you have so much money anyway. We’re just not gonna pay you back – the government. We’re gonna renounce it and start from zero.

Who would ever buy a bond again if we were to do that?

So, bottom line is incumbent upon the Trump administration to make real cuts and show progress that you’re reducing the annual budget deficit and more importantly, you have mechanisms to grow the economy.

Final note. We have a lot of confidence – this administration – that tariffs will give revenue and maybe also help reduce the budget deficit. I’m not sure that’s happening… So, I’m not sure we can count on tariff income at all.

What we should count on is cut, cut, cut. Seek a balanced budget and grow the economy with tax cuts that encourage investment and economic expansion.