First of two parts.

I have written two books (Amazon.com) on the subject of the national public debt, that portion of the total national debt that represents government securities owned by outsiders, much of it by foreign governments.

My reason for doing so was simple: I seek to persuade influential people, including candidates for the presidency, that the problem of public debt should be at the top of their agendas.

The present level of debt, and the continuing circumstances that create it, are the most dangerously under-reported threats to the security of the nation. The size of the military forces of the United States, for example, is no longer determined by external threats, but by financial considerations.

"We must have it!" has been replaced by "Can we afford it?"

This threatening situation must be immediately corrected.

What the candidates say

Recognition of this problem has occasionally surfaced in ongoing debates among the candidates for the presidency, which is a good thing. But emphasis has been inadequate, and some of the responses from these political leaders have been disappointing.

Republicans Rudy Giuliani and John McCain, for example, when they respond to questions about budget control, focus on cutbacks in the government workforce, the minimization of pork-barrel spending, or control over illegal immigration, as being the best paths to a solution. Wrong!

If all of those things were done, the threat posed by public debt would remain.

With respect to the Democratic candidates, the approach is more unified, but even more troubling. Phrasing differs and emphasis varies, but the common plan of action that emerges from answers given by the serious candidates - Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards - is four-fold:

* End the war; bring the troops home.

* Cancel all, or some, of the Bush tax cuts.

* Increase selective taxes.

* Eliminate waste and fraud (the usual election-year bromide).

And judging by the rhetoric of these Democrats when they respond to other questions, there is little doubt their victory in November would result in new and expanded entitlement programs. In addition, there would likely be little effort to redesign the largest of them despite the pressing need to do so. This is a frightening prospect.

Republican Fred Thompson was the only candidate from either side to correctly and clearly state that the way to fundamentally deal with public debt is to first deal with the monster that feeds it - entitlement programs. Unfortunately, he's no longer in the race.

Among the remaining Republicans, Mitt Romney comes close to saying the same thing, but has not done so as firmly as Thompson. Giuliani and McCain have cost-cutting credentials, but neither has focused on entitlements. Huckabee, based on his record as governor, is not yet a reliable advocate of entitlement reform.

And as far as Democrats Clinton, Obama and Edwards are concerned, they have yet to recognize the need for entitlement reform (except in terms of tax increases), and they will apparently add to, not subtract from, the problem.

Need for reform

The unique expression of the debt problem contained herein (and in expanded form in my books on the subject) is aimed at all communicators and presidential contenders in the hope that it will assist them in overcoming ideological fervor, and trigger a desire to conquer it.

Democrats have invested so much capital in entitlements that they will find it politically difficult to publicly turn back. And perhaps they will not, until the will of the people - or fiscal collapse - gives them no other option.

But let us hope that patriotism plus intellectual honesty will ultimately move them to find face-saving ways to reach across the aisle and become active participants in a bipartisan attempt to solve one of America's foundation problems - an uncontrolled budget and runaway debt.

There is reason to hope that some Republican candidates are tuned in to the critical need to control entitlement programs. Everything possible must be done to move others to the same conclusion, and to send welcoming signals to any Democrat who shows honest interest in a project designed to re-establish the fiscal integrity of the United States.

On the surface, this plea for unity should not be difficult to sell. Debt is obviously too high - 44 percent of it is owned by foreign governments, not all of them friendly. And interest cost has become a major line item in the budget.

But politics being what it is, only a fool would confidently predict the bipartisan unity that a solution requires - absent considerable pressure from the public and from the nation's most respected communicators.

Look at what we've done to ourselves

From 1951 through 1970, Defense was a more expensive line item in the federal budget than Human Resources (the budget home of the Welfare State). This was a signal that our leaders recognized that the primary responsibility of any government is national security.

In 1971, after the social programs of the Great Society had generated a flood of unaffordable costs, priorities changed. Human Resources was 16 percent higher than the cost of Defense (this during the Vietnam War and the Cold War). That cost relationship has worsened ever since until in 2006 so Human Resources expenditures were 220 percent of Defense (also in a time of war) spending.

This is a clear signal that in Washington, the needs of the Welfare State now supersede the needs of the Defense Department.

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Robert Kelly of Peabody writes regularly for the opinion pages of The Salem News. Next: Borrowing, spending give rise to feelings of insecurity.