I’ve been having a conversation with myself over the national debt, knowing full well that, like bad summer weather, shaking my fist at it won’t make it go away. Surely we can all agree this debt is a bad thing, created by decades of profligate overspending in Washington, largely on things the government should not have been spending money on in the first place.
The dumbed down appeal from the president is that we as a nation can’t default on our obligations, the money was authorized to be spent by congress, we spent it, and now we have to pay our bills, he says. Others in government want to make their approval to borrow more money (I guess from China) to service the debt contingent on large spending cuts to stop increasing the debt. The president’s response to this is, he will not have the country’s obligation to pay its debt held hostage to a demand to reduce the growth of its debt. Huh? Reducing the growth of the debt is a conversation I’m willing to have, he says, but not now, down the road.
Oh, I see.
Reduced to a household metaphor graspable by The Folks: “Honey, we need to get another credit card just to pay the interest on our other ten credit cards, and later we can discuss whether or not to continue eating out every night.”
That kind of logic would go over like a fart in church at most supper tables. But coming from Washington, we are all supposed to just smile and say the president is doing the best he can, this isn’t a problem of his creation, he inherited it from the bad guys, the ones bent on destroying the country and its reputation, therefore don’t listen to them.
At this point in my schizophrenic conversation the principle and practical diverge. In principle, I agree with the bad guys, we ought to reduce the size of government to lessen its influence over our personal and economic liberties. The most obvious way to accomplish this is to severely reduce the amount of money the government spends. But in practice, how much should I really care about something I have no power to change? Indeed, what if not changing it, but encouraging it, for the rest of my years in this life is in my own interest? After all, in the next decade the government will begin mailing me and Happy Wife social security checks. Before long (by law) the government will be our primary health insurance provider. If principled arguments for severe austerity include the reduction or delay of these things to me and my wife, why should I agree with them? The usual come back argument is that I should think beyond myself and consider our children’s future, how they will have to bear the economic burden of continued profligacy in government. Except we don’t have children. Our concern may extend to our nieces, and possibly their children, but beyond that relationship my concern rapidly fades to good luck.
Anyway, an ongoing conversation with myself, which lately usually occurs during winter walks in a world of white.
Summit Lake, 75 miles south of Anchorage:
But in practice, how much should I really care about something I have no power to change? Indeed, what if not changing it, but encouraging it, for the rest of my years in this life, is in my own interest? After all, in the next decade the government will begin mailing me and Happy Wife social security checks. Before long (by law) the government will be our primary health insurance provider. If principled arguments for severe austerity include the reduction or delay of these things to me and my wife, why should I agree with them?
RKN, your, and my own, self-interests would seem to indicate that we should not care, for the reasons you indicate, and I have kids, not just nieces and nephews.
But I do care, in large part because even though I recognize and realize the importance of my self-interests, and cater to them as best I can, I think it important to pass the idea, and care and keeping of self-interests, on to future generations in an attempt to prevent future generations from living in unaware, and supposed benevolent, slavery to the state, which is what I perceive happening today.
Passing on true ideas to posterity is a good thing, I agree.