Is it a threat to the U.S. economy?
Bruce Bartlett, Forbes
John Maynard Keynes: “Owe your banker £1,000 and you are at his mercy; owe him £1 million and the position is reversed.”
Virtually every budget expert knows that the U.S. federal debt is on an unsustainable course. This means that something beyond our control is eventually going to force us to live within our means. Historically, it has been foreign bond holders who ultimately imposed fiscal austerity on profligate nations. That is why America’s growing foreign debt should be a matter of concern to policymakers.
As is well known, the Founding Fathers were quite hostile to the idea of a national debt and deficit spending. The Constitution itself came into being because the federal government was institutionally incapable of balancing its budget, leading to a financial crisis and a constitutional convention to fix it. Yet, the framers of the Constitution neglected to include a provision requiring a balanced budget.
It’s possible that the framers thought it superfluous to have a provision explicitly stating that the budget should be balanced, since it was a view so widely shared by all Americans at the time. They also didn’t see any need to explicitly state that the Constitution guaranteed freedom of speech and religion and other important provisions that were subsequently included in the Bill of Rights.
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Tags: Bill of Rights, Congress, Constitution, Economy, OpEd, Opinion
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