Currently, the United States has little or no interest in getting its fiscal house in order, as demonstrated by the massive fiscal deficits it consistently incurs, year in and year out. This is especially disappointing because the way that debt works, when the reckoning of such is thereby postponed and thus kicked down the road, again and again, is that today’s generation gets to have all the advantages of that money not having been paid back. In contrast, the future generation is stuck having to pay the bill, which is ethically wrong.
In actuality, a responsible government would understand well that it should pay what it so owes on a current basis, which would thereby be fair to the current generation, as well as to future generations, but this, regrettably, is not being done. Instead, something awful is happening, in which those even yet unborn will subsequently be born having to honor debt which they did nothing to incur, but yet it will be their responsibility to discharge that debt, or suffer the ill consequences of a nation that is, for all practical purposes, insolvent.
In truth, each generation should prudently manage its affairs, and when spending far exceeds the receipts received from taxation and the like, then hard decisions are going to have to be made, in the here and now, as opposed to burdening future generations with having to deal with that which they had no part or say in. That is to say, it wouldn’t be right for our parents, to live high on the hog, and then when the bill came due, to pass it onto their children, but that essentially is what is happening here in America, because our governance has not the courage or the integrity to get its house in order. After all, there isn’t anything easier to do than passing out benefits for all sorts of wonderful things, without requiring that the general public fairly pay for those benefits, presently..
To look upon America’s current national debt burden as no big deal is to view it wrongly, for there will come that time when the piper will have to be paid, and the payment really should come forth from those who have benefited from those monies so having been spent. So too, people won’t really appreciate that things cost money if they aren’t ever held to account to pay for those things, and perhaps therefore to have to sacrifice something of their time and labor to duly pay for such.
Look, it has to be said, running massive deficits reflects a nation that has little or no discipline, and is clearly afraid to burden its citizens with the real cost of things, for it fears the response from such. Nobody, really likes to have to tighten their belt, but the bottom line is that monies spent, wisely or poorly, produces a mandatory bill, and that bill needs to be paid by those that were part and parcel of when that money was spent, which is not only the right thing to do, but the fair thing, as well.