Why the State Must Live Within its Means

While Keynesians and any number of control based economists can provide endless reasons to justify government debt, it has proven to be one of the greatest underlying problems undermining the US’s national integrity. Debt has been a contentious national issue, yet no party or politician has been serious about it enough to do anything significant. The benefits of the uphill battle to mitigate debt are far outweighed by the clamors of the people for more benefits and less taxation. The US has constantly been in debt since 1835, and from the looks of it we will not be out of it for decades. The last time we even had a budget surplus was 2001, and the deficit is just greater every year. We must have a radical return to spending below national income if we want to avoid our continued descent into an indebted future. Spending less than it brings in protects the federal government from the potential of debt to balloon. Having a smaller budget also forces the government to pick a smaller set of more important priorities which allows it to utilize its money better. The government living within its means also cuts out many different factors of economic and political uncertainty, and allows for people to thrive.

The moment that a government spends beyond its means forces the question to be asked of how much debt is acceptable. The problem with this question is that it is an extremely ambiguous and open-ended question with real and damaging consequences. The government bureaucrats desire to spend more money means that this question will never be answered fairly and more debt will always be chosen over responsibility. The moment that debt becomes the default, people adjust to the new standard of living and will almost inevitably begin to demand more benefits that can only be attained through debt. The simple rule of living within the means of the revenue derived from taxation makes sure that this negative spiral never begins. People having to live with a lower set of luxuries from the government is a fair price to pay for the countless benefits in economic stability and national security gained from a nation that is not financially dependent.

It is evident that the government is great at wasting money, and limiting the budget is a great way to limit stupid spending. The government is forced to choose a subset of its priorities and actually has more manpower to implement those priorities as well. The ratio of dollars per employee is decreased so that they are unable to simply throw money at problems, but rather must make the hard trade-off required by a limited budget. Committees and government employees will not be expected to solve every problem given that their limited budget is known. Rather than being seen as a solution to every problem, the limited budget option will allow them to be seen for what they are as they try to solve problems in a very constrained environment. Ultimately the role of government should not be to solve the people’s problems, but rather to provide a stable environment in which the market can solve problems. A limitation of the government’s budget could be extremely helpful at rearranging the people’s perception of the government role and allowing them to step up and solve the problems they were waiting for it to solve.

Death throws many layers of insecurity into the fabric of the nation. First, the economic insecurity of the nation’s stability depending on interest rates is a huge problem. National strength should not be greatly determined by the conditions of lenders. Additionally, the tendency to overprint currency and inflate to stave off debt payments is a huge negative incentive that is clearly making Americans poor. Operating in an environment with a high debt load is terrible for people’s trust of politicians. There is no win-win situation as they must either reduce the benefits they offer the people or increase that. When people know that the government is constrained by financial stress, it becomes far harder to trust that politicians are acting rationally through time. People consents fear in their leaders and high levels of debt can cause people to act erratically like adding tariffs or drastically increasing corporate taxes. Ultimately people yearn for stability and debt undercut this through many different means. Debt is a symbol of the government trying to fulfill more rules than it really should, and resulting in the reduction of well-being for almost every citizen.