DEBT, DEFICITS AND THE COST OF FREE LUNCHES
It seems that every generation or two, fundamental economic ideas are questioned and challenged. The reasonable and important idea that governments should balance their budgets on an annual basis was challenged in the 1930s by the rise of Keynesian Economics and the counter-argument that deficit spending was desirable, if it was used to maintain full employment. Now it seems that any defense or desire for fiscal restraint and less government spending and borrowing are entirely out the window. Fiscal folly is the watchword of the day.
It is not surprising that politicians care little about annual budget deficits and growing debt, since spending money is their way of buying votes from interest groups wanting to eat at the government trough. In America today, it is all a political game by which Democrats and Republicans pander to their respective voting blocs, especially in an upcoming presidential and congressional election year like 2020.
On the one hand, the danger of a looming political crisis is warned about in the media when they point to the coming budgetary circus that will most likely start playing out toward the end of the summer of 2019, when Congress comes back into full session and the new federal budget year that begins on October 1, 2019, will have to be handled in some way.
Budgetary Brinkmanship and Political Plunder
Will the country be facing another federal government shutdown threat like the one in late 2018 and early 2019? Will the national debt limit be raised to permit the spending of the huge sums of money needed to fulfill all the demands for other people’s money above actual taxes collected through the syphoning off of private sector resources by continued government borrowing in the financial markets?
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