…but not Bush’s? Well, actually, they complained about both. But here’s a nice description of why it reached a tipping point:
[Update late afternoon]
Again, it illustrates the point that I’ve made in the past on this subject, that quantity has a quality all its own.
I’d like to see this done as an inflation-adjusted percent of GDP. Or some kind of more thorough analysis.
I’ve been hearing since 1980 about the evils of the national debt, and disaster has been threatened many times, most hysterically under Reagan — and we know how that turned out.
I don’t doubt that national debt at some level is evil. Or perhaps it matters where the borrowed money was spent — after all, in principle going into debt equal to four times one’s “personal GDP” (annual income) to buy a house is generally considered a Good Thing. Maybe there are certain government spending for which borrowing is OK, others where it’s not.
But unfortunately, in nigh on 30 years I’ve yet to see anything much than sound-bite argument Aieeee! The Debt! and then That’s just temporary, needed investment anyway, So-and-so did it first nyah nyah. Surely, one would think, there is some better argument and information out there. Or else WTF have all those fancy-pants economists been up to the past 50 years, if not studying the details of this very important question?
Maybe I should add that I don’t need analysis of the virtues and evils of the national debt to find the Obama Administration’s spending plans a ghastly horror. Even if those plans did not involve raising the debt one penny, they would be appalling. The reason why is best captured in Mark Steyn’s recent Hillsdale College address, in which he notes the enervating, soul-killing nature of turning the citizenry into wards of the State. This is not the way free men should live, or half live.
Carl, I think the point at which it turns into a real problem is when the dollar is no longer trusted as a reserve currency, when confidence is lost that we will repay it in anything resembling current-year dollars. I suspect that the latest bond auction may have kept some folks at Treasury and the Fed awake at night. If they’re sensible, anyway.
“…..the latest bond auction may have kept some folks at Treasury and the Fed awake at night.”
I’d say that was just about when Obama started paying some lip service to out out of control debt spending. He went from mockingly flailing about an imaginary tea bag to almost verbatim recitation of some key tea party talking points.
I’d say that was just about when Obama started paying some lip service to out out of control debt spending.
My take on his words is that we people can’t get away with out of control debt spending. After all, that leaves less money for us to pay in taxes. And pay we will until we bleed.
“And pay we will until we bleed.”
No kidding. Don’t spend that money in the private sector, I need it, I want it and I will have it.
Sacrifice, you see, is noble.
Especially when you’re forced into it.
It all depends on whether you’re sacrificing or you’re the sacrifice, McG.
Don’t worry. You’ll have the satisfaction, like one of those Judean slaves breaking your back dragging two-ton blocks of limestone up the ramp to Pharoah’s mighty tomb, of knowing that you will have been sacrificed in a noble, enduring cause. When Al Gore and Barry Obama meet to celebtrate the New Glorious Order over wagyu steaks and caviar on smoked lark’s tongues, they will remember kindly your sad toils and unmarked mass grave, like a Hollywood star thanking all the “little people” that made her what she is, and probably they’ll raise a glass of $5,000 Chateau Lafite 1875 to your memory, in a very kind way.
I love it and I need it
I bleed it yeah it’s a wild hurricane
Alright hold tight
I’m a highway star