Ron Paul cared.
It is a problem that cant be forgotten and I believe that should constrain sudden massive spending.
It isnt easy by any means.
What was that Reagan said about immortality on earth and government programmes?
Yes, Ron Paul and some conservatives cared but we were in the minority. Before all this CV stuff started I was telling other Freepers that we should be paying down the deficit since the economy was so good. They kept going on about how they needed their tax cuts. The Trump tax cuts actually raised my taxes a bit. I wasn’t crazy about that but I would have put up with it if it meant shrinking the deficit and reducing our reliance on China. Instead I watched as the deficit just grew and grew even after 11 years of economic growth. Where did all the money go? I don’t know. I wish to God I did but I don’t. And we held both the House and Senate until 2018 so clearly there are plenty of GOPers who didn’t mind the red ink. Now that we face a real national emergency, both health and economy-wise, and our reserves are dried up.
When this is over we need a national reckoning about our attitude towards money and debts, both private and public.
Deficit spending is an effect not the cause of our problems. The cause is as old as the hills:
Free people will eventually trade away their freedom, and empower a central authority, rather than make the hard sacrifices necessary to stay free.
Why will they do this? Because their great grandparents who suffered under the oppression of authoritarianism, and spilt blood to gain their freedom, are dead and gone, and the lessons they learned the hard way, are long forgotten.
If the monstrous size and power of the overreaching federal government was reduced to the scale and roles intended by the founders, and it’s awesome appetite for expansion kept in check by the Constitution, there could be no deficit or national debt.
Deficit spending is the least of our problems - all our problems arise from the wonton abandonment of Constitutional strictures that were meant to protect us from an all consuming central government.
Our political situation is bleak - wherein half the people and half the politicians are outspoken in their desire to disable the Constitution and remove any remaining limits on federal authority - exactly what the Founders sought to avoid!
It was never meant to be that way. We were meant to be free people, freely debating issues in the context of freedom - we were NOT meant to be debating whether or not to abandon the Constitution and give up our freedom in exchange for the false promises of socialism.
The Democrats are socialists who believe the Constitution is an obstacle to progress. The Republicans are (at best) fools, asleep at the switch, allowing themselves to be cheated.
President Trump is a rare visionary - let’s hope he can wake enough people up - not to reduce the debt - but to shrink the federal government to a tenth the size.