Over at Reason Nick Gillespie reviews the fashionable leftist view that deficit, tax, and spending rates don’t matter.
In a recent writing workshop, a participant brought to my attention a New York Times article with the same theme.
The Times accuses those claiming the Emperor has no money of uttering “obfuscating nonsense,” though the U.S. faces debt over $14 trillion and unfunded liabilities several times larger. True, this does not technically render the federal government “broke,” because it can pay its debts by raising taxes and creating money from thin air, in other words by forcibly confiscating more of people’s earnings.
But, regardless of what the meaning of the word “broke,” is, out-of-control federal spending threatens our prosperity and our liberty.
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Scott Connery commented March 15, 2011 at 10:00 PM
Anyone who can’t tell that the US is in a severe debt crisis simply isn’t looking at the numbers.
http://www.rationalpublicradio.com/the-federal-government-now-owes-100-of-gdp.html