The quote, from RedState, was
“Repeat after me: debt is money we owe to ourselves. It doesn't make the nation as a whole poorer.”This is the kind of nonsense we have come to expect from Progressives*. What hit me was the realization that this is not new thinking. It is simply a repetition of the kind of thinking and government action that is a result of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration. Yes, that FDR. He brought in a bunch of bright eyed Harvard types who were not worried about how Roosevelt had been running up the deficit with his New Deal programs. They wanted to borrow more. Does this sound like Krugman to you,
“But to these new economic philosophers this was nothing to disturb the slumbers of the people. Government debt is not like private debt, they said. It does not have to be paid. The government can keep it afloat indefinitely by redeeming old bonds with new bonds. Moreover the interest on the government debt will not be a burden. The debt is due by the people themselves. The people owe the debt. The people own the bonds which represent the debt. The government taxes the people to pay the interest on the bonds. It takes the taxes out of the pockets of the people and pays it back to them in the form of interest. It is just taking it out of one pocket and putting it in the other.” page 160
Part of the Progressive* mind set is printing money and buying people off. Congress just passed an unfunded “relief package”. It wasn’t enough for the Democrats. They want trillions more. If they get it then they will want still more.
Some things never change. That is why the people in congress need to be.
Flynn, John T. The Roosevelt Myth. Garden City, New York: Garden City Books, 1948.
*(Liberals, educators, socialists, communists, elites, Rinos, Democrats, leftists, Never Trumpers, etc)
homo unius libri
If I remember, Alexander Hamilton leaned that direction.
ReplyDeleteI don't know about printing money but he was the one who insisted that the new government pay its debts instead of declaring bankruptcy. But keep in mind I went to school in California.
DeleteGrace and peace