The Right POV – Government Debt is Irresponsible

The Right Point of View is a semi-regular guest post by my favorite Western fiction writer, Edward Massey.  His life is like one of his novels – from the hills of Utah to the renowned McKinsey & Co. to managing the band Blondie to owning a minor league baseball team. He has his own blog about the trials and tribulations of being a writer and you can also pick up copies of his wonderful books at edwardmasseybooks.com. Please check it out when you can. Edward is a good friend and a great guy but his conservative/libertarian politics are more than just my polar opposite – we might not be on the same planet.  But I’ve always thought it was important for Democrats to at least hear and understand what the other side believes, especially if we are to convert them to our side.  They may be right, but that certainly does not make them correct.

I’m not sure I can keep up with my good friend, Tidal Sounder, but I am happy he has invited me to participate in his blog. It’s sort of an insurance policy, an anchor, to keep his blog from floating out to sea with the rest of liberal Connecticut. To wit, I certainly agree with his earlier post that government debt is not like personal debt.  The trouble is his post does not deal with the reasons government debt needs to be monitored, abhorred, and reduced. For the reasons he already stated (which for the sake of brevity I will not enumerate in total), government debt is almost always irresponsible. It is not viewed as a real burden to those who create it because they never expect it to be addressed. Those who address it are the aged, the poor, the disadvantaged, and the fixed-income earner. Ask your average liberal who he/she is worried about – like a litany: the aged, the poor, the disadvantaged, and the fixed-income earner. The reason for controlling government debt is not found in any of the straw men Tidal Sounder so adroitly builds and slays.  The reason is that GDP and tax revenues, like energy and breath, are finite. They can and will run out. They are running out. The accretion of government debt converts GDP growth and inevitable tax increases to interest payments and this expense is achieved at the expense of government services (or private benefit, but let not a liberal be concerned about the destruction of private benefit). That which is the most irresponsible requires the greatest care and discipline from a civilized society. Government debt is necessary, but reigning it in and seeking to eliminate it (which will only have the result of lowering the rate at which it grows) is what requires that a few of us to continue to maintain the right point of view.