(no subject)
Mar. 20th, 2006 05:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
progAssertion: Most Americans have no idea what the national debt is, nor why having a large debt is bad. This despite the fact that anyone plugged into any news source knows that we have a national debt, and that it is apparently very large indeed and growing ever larger. But I don't think anyone in the mainstream news ever stops to go into any more detail about it.
I assert this because I don't know what I means. That it, I know its dictionary definition, but I couldn't enumerate with confidence what trouble we as a nation are inviting by running up such an enormous tab. One could draw parallels between national debt and and personal debt, but this metaphor seems to have little practical application; if the country gets harassing phone calls from foreign bill collectors, we are not privy to it.
I think of this when I see an elegant argument that part of the appeal of the current administration lay in its favoring a borrow-and-spend strategy versus a tax-and-spend one. Rather than taking hard-earned money away from its citizens, it *poof* makes money appear by arcane magics. And isn't that better?
Opponents of Reagan, Bush41 and Bush43 have ever leaned on the horn that shouts the ever-increasing depth of our debt hole. But until there's a national awareness of why any average American should care, I think this effort is wasted.
I assert this because I don't know what I means. That it, I know its dictionary definition, but I couldn't enumerate with confidence what trouble we as a nation are inviting by running up such an enormous tab. One could draw parallels between national debt and and personal debt, but this metaphor seems to have little practical application; if the country gets harassing phone calls from foreign bill collectors, we are not privy to it.
I think of this when I see an elegant argument that part of the appeal of the current administration lay in its favoring a borrow-and-spend strategy versus a tax-and-spend one. Rather than taking hard-earned money away from its citizens, it *poof* makes money appear by arcane magics. And isn't that better?
Opponents of Reagan, Bush41 and Bush43 have ever leaned on the horn that shouts the ever-increasing depth of our debt hole. But until there's a national awareness of why any average American should care, I think this effort is wasted.
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no subject
Date: 2006-03-20 10:40 pm (UTC)