National debt should be called deferred taxes.

[Swede]

That is what it is.


http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

[RobertSeattle]

1. I've been saying that for a while now

Tax cuts during times of deficits aren't tax cuts at all - that's a fraud - they are merely tax deferments. One generation shirking its responsibilities onto another.

[ddeclue]

2. How about taxes plus interest

[BuyingThyme]

3. I've been trying to get candidates to use that for years.

I say, "The only difference between an increase in taxes and an increase in deficit is that you have to pay interest on the increase in deficit."

By my from-the-hip calculation, George W. Bush has raises taxes more than anybody in the history of the world. But that's way too complicated for Dumb America to understand.

[papau]

4. Indeed that is what GAAP Accounting would call it.

:-)

[davekriss]

5. A pyramid scheme

The advantaged of this generation over all of our children and grandchildren and their children.

A f*cking shame.

[papau]

7. true :-(

:-(

[susanna]

6. Now that's brilliant...

Because that is what it is. I've reached a few diehard Republicans that way, for the record...

[pitohui]

9. no they've reached you

they've been screaming for 20 yrs that debt is bad, i notice in reality that for them debt is only bad when it is used to help people

and yet suddenly people are coming out of the woodwork, at a time when we need unprecedented funds for rebuilding this nation, to scream that debt is bad

i expect it from the freepers

it saddens me to hear such nonsense parroted by self-identified progressives

[susanna]

13. Huh?

I guess I'm not sure what you're saying here...

[pitohui]

8. only if you don't believe in progress

countries where paying off debt is put ahead of social welfare are countries that end up mired in third world conditions forever

countries that invest in infrastructure and building the nation's future are nations that end up powerful, because they actually create value

think FDR and the new deal, were we poorer or richer as a result of the huge gov't spending?

debt can be good or bad

right now if debt be required to rebuild our gulf coast and our nation's infrastructure, then incur the debt, the value of the port, the oil reserves and refining, etc. will repay the debt a hundredfold

the person who fears debt will never get the top education, never buy a house, never start a business, without wise use of debt & belief in the future, there is no future

it is the same w. gov'ts, the gov't who thinks it a waste to invest in education will end up with a population of waste cases & no-hopers, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy

debt is a tool that can be good or bad

trying to re-brand debt as something terrible is doing the wingnut's job for him, they are the ones who want to kill investment in our human potential and in our infrastructure, they are the ones hysterically and historically afraid of national debt

let's not steal the most dumb-ass ideas of the wingnut extremists and claim them as our own, that would be silly

[Swede]

10. Well I guess Togo and Somalia are shining examples of that.

Pay as you go is so last century.

[MadisonProgressive]

11. This is very misleading

"right now if debt be required to rebuild our gulf coast and our nation's infrastructure, then incur the debt, the value of the port, the oil reserves and refining, etc. will repay the debt a hundredfold"

Only if that value is actually used to PAY DOWN the debt - which it never is!

[ny_liberal]

12. well said

but who in DC cares about our growing national debt?