Retired neurosurgeon and Republic presidential candidate vows to tackle rising national debt

Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon and a popular Republican presidential candidate among conservatives, has vowed to tackle the rising and unsustainable U.S. national debt problem that could ruin the country's credit.

"We have an 18.5 trillion U.S. dollars national debt. That is a lot of money," Carson said Saturday in a speech at a campaign rally in Des Moines, capital of the U.S. state of Iowa, one of the most important swing states in presidential race.

"If you try to pay back at a rate of 10 million dollars a day, 365 days a year, it would take you more than 5,000 years. That's what we are putting on the backs of our young people. It is unsustainable," Carson told a crowd of over 500 people.

"You know Thomas Jefferson said it's immoral to pass debt to the next generation ... He would not be able to believe we're doing not only to the next generation but to multiple generations beyond them," said Carson, an African-American conservative known for his criticism of U.S. President Barack Obama's policies.

"The only reason we can sustain that kind of debt is because we can print money, because we're the reserve currency of the world, a position that normally goes with the No. 1 economy in the world, " he said, warning that U.S. faith and credit could collapse at any moment with this level of debt if the country cannot print money any more.

Carson's warning came as the United States is coming close again to its debt ceiling. U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said last month that the "extraordinary measures" now preventing a debt default could be exhausted by the end of October.

"The solution for solving the national debt is we have to get the economic engine rolling again. It cannot go with all these regulations and with a tax system that does not encourage entrepreneurs' risk-taking and capital investment," Carson told Xinhua after the campaign rally.

"If we can get that engine rolling again, there're trillions of dollars sitting on the side, people would be willing to invest," he said.

The campaign rally is part of Carson's family festival events featuring with live music and food across the state this weekend after he showed well at the first national Republican presidential debate aired Thursday night.

Carson's comments during that prime-time debate earned 24,000 new Twitter followers and 230,000 Facebook fans, the most of any candidate, according to local media.

"A lot of people think he won the debate. I do, too," Randy Henriksen, a 59-year-old male from Des Moines told Xinhua. "He is just going to be such a wonderful leader for our country when he's elected as the next president, because I really believe we need someone who is not a politician to save our country."

Iowa voters hoped an outsider could fix Washington's dysfunctional political system, despite the fact that the retired neurosurgeon had no political experience.

"He has been successful in his career, I think that success will translate him to be a political leader," Annie Boyd, a young mother attending the campaign rally with her three children, told Xinhua. Endite