Navy moves ship off coast of Korean Peninsula, White House looks to 'reassure' allies

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  Dec. 5, 2010: The guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain approaches the aircraft carrier USS George Washington for a fueling at sea.Navy

The U.S. military has moved a Navy ship capable of intercepting missiles to waters off the coast of the Korean Peninsula, as threats from North Korea's Kim Jong Un escalate and the White House signals it wants to head off any potential conflict by flexing America's military might. 

A U.S. defense official confirmed to Fox News that the Navy had moved the U.S. destroyer to a location near South Korea. The ship, the USS McCain, is equipped with the Aegis defense system and is capable of shooting down missiles. Officials initially misidentified the ship but later clarified the USS McCain had been dispatched.

The defense official said the decision is not part of the ongoing joint military exercise with South Korea but part of the Navy's general movements. The Navy had the same type of ship in this location as recently as December. 

But, the positioning comes after the Pentagon dispatched two F-22 stealth fighter jets to South Korea to join Seoul forces in a training exercise, and after other demonstrations of U.S. capability last week. 

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Monday that Kim Jong Un's steadily escalating threats follow a "pattern," but one that must be taken seriously. He said the U.S. is now taking "prudent" measures to "reassure our allies, demonstrate our resolve to the North and reduce pressure on Seoul to take unilateral action." 

This would include efforts to boost missile defense, last week's rare flight of B-2 bombers to South Korea and likely the decision Sunday to deploy F-22 Raptors to Osan Air Base in South Korea. 

With analysts warning that the biggest threat from North Korea is that it could start a war by going too far and provoking South Korea, Carney suggested the shows of strength are aimed at deterring the North from crossing that line. 

"We believe this has reduced the chance of miscalculation and provocation," Carney said of the B-2 flights and other actions. 

Carney, though, said that despite the "harsh rhetoric" out of Pyongyang, the U.S. is not seeing changes to the country's "military posture," such as any "large-scale" mobilizations or positioning of forces. 

"This pattern of bellicose rhetoric is not new, it is familiar," Carney said. "We take it very seriously, we take prudent measures in response to it." 

The F-22 flight came after North Korea warned that the Korean Peninsula had entered "a state of war." 

A Pentagon spokesman confirmed to Fox News that the F-22 Raptors were deployed to Osan Air Base in South Korea from Japan on Sunday to support ongoing U.S.-South Korean military drills. 

"This exercise has been planned for some time and is part of the air component of the Foal Eagle exercise," spokesman George Little told reporters Monday. 

Meanwhile, the North Korean leader gathered legislators Monday for an annual spring parliamentary session that followed a ruling party declaration that nuclear bomb building and a stronger economy were the nation's top priorities. 

The meeting of the Supreme People's Assembly follows near-daily threats from Pyongyang, including vows of nuclear strikes on South Korea and the U.S. 

North Korea said Saturday its armed forces, "will blow up U.S. bases for aggression in its mainland and in the Pacific operational theatres including Hawaii and Guam." 

Kim also threatened to shut down a border factory complex that is the last major symbol of inter-Korean cooperation. 

The threats are seen as part of an effort to provoke the new government in Seoul to change its policies toward Pyongyang and to win diplomatic talks with Washington in order to gain more aid. 

Fox News' Justin Fishel and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Democrats and Republicans must embrace radical moves to fix our fiscal mess

Federal deficits are too large and mounting national debt threatens future generations. Both Democrats and Republicans embrace demagoguery and refuse to address facts and acknowledge lessons of history.

Since 2007, federal spending is up $1 trillion dollars and deficits jumped from $161 billion to $1.2 trillion over five years.

Higher taxes on the wealthy and ObamaCare levies will pull down the gap in 2014 but then it will rise again. Health care, social security and slow growth, not low taxes, are the culprits.

Both sides need to be honest with Americans about working longer and accept a radically different role for government.

Tax rates and rules imposed in January will increase revenue’s share of GDP well above its average for the last forty years.

However, Americans spend 18 percent of GDP on health care, while the Germans and Dutch, with more government cost sharing and better care, spend about 12 percent.  

Even with ObamaCare, private insurance premiums and out-of pocket expenses are rocketing, while Medicare and Medicaid have suppressed provider reimbursements to levels that many physicians refuse to take publically-financed patients.

Benchmarked against Germany and Holland, U.S. private health care prices are too high, while government rates for the poor and elderly are too low to cover providers’ costs.

Republicans would rely more on markets and competition—scrapping most Obama Care mandates and giving elderly vouchers to buy private care—and hoisting the poor onto the states by replacing Medicaid with block grants.

Those would not bring down private health care prices—cash grants to the elderly and fragmenting Medicaid administration would raise those.

GOP strategies would leave many elderly and poor forgoing care, less healthy and dying too young—much the new reality for the former middle class and poor in Portugal, Spain and Greece.

The Germans do what Messrs Obama, Boehner and others are unwilling to conceive—directly reimbursing most health care costs, regulating most providers’ prices, slashing administrative burdens and executive salaries, and eliminating most malpractice suits.

The necessary taxes would be less expensive for U.S. businesses and individuals than the taxes, health insurance premiums and out-of-pocket costs they now bear.

Americans live longer and can work longer, and social security and government pension ages should be raised to 70. No system of social insurance or federal finance can work when folks can live another 20 or 30 years in retirement.

No tax increase can escape these realities—overtaxation caused nothing but slow growth, misery and decay in southern Europe.

Overregulation of the private sector does not mitigate, but rather exacerbates risks of financial crisis. The greatest threats come, not from private bank meltdowns and personal bankruptcies, but rather from a loss of confidence in government’s ability to promote adequate economic growth and hence raise revenues to finance its legitimate responsibilities.

President Obama inherited a mess—unemployment peaked at 10 percent in his first term—but since his recovery began, economic growth has averaged only 2.1 percent.

President Reagan inherited a mess too—unemployment peaked at 10.8 percent—but at the comparable point in his recovery, growth was averaging 5.3 percent. Fueled by continued strong growth, federal deficits dissolved in the 1990s.

Instead of campaigning that cutting federal spending one half of one percent will force food shortages, outbreaks of E. coli and streets without police, the President would do better to read more about Reagan and less about Lincoln—he faces a growth crisis not a civil war.

Republicans would do better to acknowledge that just as national defense can’t be left to private armies, markets and competition can’t solve health care inflation.

Both sides need to be honest with Americans about working longer and accept a radically different role for government if they want to leave the nation to their grandchildren as they inherited it—prosperous, secure and solvent.

Peter Morici is an economist and professor at the Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, and widely published columnist. Follow him on Twitter @PMorici1.

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