Think of your fixed 20 or 30 year mortgage. It looks big and scary when you sign the papers, but as the years go by it shrinks in comparison to your (hopefully) rising income.
But imagine if your debt were growing faster than your income. At some point, total yearly spending will overtake your income, driving you to bankruptcy.
That is what is happening to the US: Debt is Growing Faster than GDP
We've had debt since the 1800's. It's ballooned in war time and gone down in flush times. But over the past decades (yes, it is partially Bush's fault), it's been growing faster than our economy.
Are Liberals Economically Stupid, Purposefully Dishonest or Willfully Ignorant?
Surf over to ultra-lib Salon and you'll quickly see why most liberals are economically ignorant. Michael Lind has written a extremely stupid article, even by liberal standards. He starts with the standard Keynesian argument that you can't cut government spending during a recession, blithely unaware that there is no empirical data to back this up.
He then poo poos those who compare the national budget to a household budget:
This folksy metaphor is repeated so often that its absurdity is rarely noticed. In reality, households and businesses do not balance their budgets every month, or even every year. Both households and businesses take out loans and pay them down over many years.Dishonesty: The favorite liberal tool
Do deficit hawks understand that real households and businesses do not follow the "pay-go" rules that they advocate for the government — on the supposed model of households and businesses? Are deficit hawks really deficit dodos?
This is bald-faced dishonesty. Nobody is advocating "paygo" except blue dog democrats. Americans are not protesting judicious borrowing; almost all households do it. Few of us have the money laying around to pay cash for a car or a house. But we are alarmed by a federal debt that that is increasing much faster than GDP.
Bottom Line: Attacking deficit spending attacks threatens liberalism. The heart of liberalism is bribing people with free stuff stolen from the taxpayer. Take away the money and the liberal agenda collapses like the rotten edifice it is.
He then goes on to denigrate deficit hawks as "deficit dodos," continuing to rail against this fictitious conservative straw man he has created. He is either extremely stupid or a crafty propagandist.
For the antidote to this progressive plouffian poppycock, go read the short and informative article, What Every American Should Know About The National Debt.
There is no easy way out of this fiscal nightmare. More food for thought:
The Budget's a Sham
The Debt Bomb
