One of the things that troubles me about the U.S. National Debt is that the politicians have almost entirely given up on it. They’ve got no plan, no hopes, and they don’t even lie about wanting to deal with it anymore. Even just a few years ago, elected officials would occasionally mention the need to balance the budget while on the campaign trail. But all of that is out the window now. Instead of campaigning about doing the bare minimum job of government and balancing the budget, politicians almost always focus on some other crisis or impending doom that they want to deal with, and which, in every case, requires a big mound of new federal spending, tax cuts, or subsidies.
The U.S. government, and our elected officials therein all know about this debt problem, and they know exactly what they have to do to fix it. They just don’t want to. Not as long as they can still win elections with other crises or sensationalisms.
Would you loan money to the U.S. government, knowing that they bold-facedly have no intention of paying down the debt? When phrased that way, it certainly doesn’t sound appealing. Yet, if you look up the credit ratings of the U.S. government, they are still pretty good. To me, those good credit ratings are pure fantasy, based entirely on magical thinking that the U.S. GDP will suddenly expand astronomically. But this isn’t Lord of the Rings and no Gandalf is waiting to raise his shining staff and lead the charge to save us at the last minute from debt.
