...and not the debt on our wee little sugerplum babykins? Don't wee little sugarplum babykins also grow up to pay taxes?

Well, yes they do. But unlike babies, teenagers can actually read stupid articles and get all hot and angry because they now think they see a world where they will have to pay some supposedly unfair and highly burdensome debt. IOW, the intent of this article is political, not factual. He is trying to build up support among the youth for a highly dubious economic theory, the one that says we can somehow ruin the future by leaving them our debts.

But this debt is NOT unfair or burdensome. We are paying a debt RIGHT NOW and nobody thinks this debt is unfair or burdensome, at least nobody not stupid. We are paying for all the wars that this country has fought. We are paying for all the roads and bridges this country has built. We are paying for all the regulations, research, prisons, welfare, and all the government costs of the past. And we're not crushed by that debt. In fact, we're going right ahead and having a nice little war of our very own right now. No debt of the past is stopping us from having our war and no debt we leave to our children will stop them from doing what they deem just.

We benefit from the past, enormously. We SHOULD pay a debt for those benefits. Had they not 'burdened' us with debt, we would still be living in the horse and buggy era.

This article is economic poppycock and pure shit.

Nerdnam: But unlike babies, teenagers can actually read stupid articles and get all hot and angry because they now think they see a world where they will have to pay some supposedly unfair and highly burdensome debt.

LeRoy: Teenagers should be angry. They will have to pay an unfair and highly burdensome debt. Herbert Hoover: "Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt."

Nerdnam: He is trying to build up support among the youth for a highly dubious economic theory, the one that says we can somehow ruin the future by leaving them our debts.

LeRoy: It's not a 'dubious theory'. Economists of almost all political stripes realize that when a national debt is growing at a faster rate than the economy of that nation is growing, as has been the case for the past seven years and for most of the past thirty years, that the 'burden' of the debt will indeed become larger and larger as a percentage of GDP. This is nothing more than arithmetic; and the fact that you evidently don't understand it suggests that you need to 'larn yerself some 'rithmetic.

Nerdnam: But this debt is NOT unfair or burdensome. We are paying a debt RIGHT NOW and nobody thinks this debt is unfair or burdensome, at least nobody not stupid. We are paying for all the wars that this country has fought. We are paying for all the roads and bridges this country has built. We are paying for all the regulations, research, prisons, welfare, and all the government costs of the past.

LeRoy: To the extent that past debt paid for wars that most people think were necessary [and almost all Americans, with the exception of people like Pat Buchanan, think that World War II was necessary], you are right that sensible people would not object. Nor would sensible people object to building roads and bridges, or paying for scientific research, or even to building prisons [but why does America incarcerate a much higher percentage of our population than any other country in the world?]. But why not pay for such projects out of current tax revenues, since presumably the current generation benefits from these programs? In the past seven years, however, the increase in the debt has primarily gone to pay for tax cuts for those Americans who are extremely wealthy. Have they been using the largesse to pay for roads, prisons, or scientific research? Negative: they have been laughing all the way to the bank, buying items of conspicuous consumption, like $28000 umbrella stands, $1000 omelettes, million dollar yachts and palatial homes. The retailers that have been doing well in this economy are the Neiman Marcuses and Saks Fifth Avenues of the world, while mainstream middle-class retailers like Sears and J.C. Penney's are in deep trouble. Sensible people DO object to these kinds of policies, and to the debt that results from them, and to the burden that will impose on our young.

Nerdnam: we're not crushed by that debt. In fact, we're going right ahead and having a nice little war of our very own right now. No debt of the past is stopping us from having our war and no debt we leave to our children will stop them from doing what they deem just.

LeRoy: A nice little war? A NICE LITTLE WAR?? For one thing, it is not a 'little' war: Nobel Laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz has recently estimated that the costs of this war exceed $3 TRILLION...and rising. Nor is there anything 'nice' about it. One senses that you have not heard the confession of former Bush Press Secretary Scott McLellan that the war was 'unnecessary' and that the reasons for it were trumped up and sold to the American public via a massive propaganda campaign. It is furthermore extraordinary, and unprecedented, to have trillion dollar tax cuts during a time of war. Your entire post utterly ignores the opportunity costs of this war: what else could we have done with all those resources? I can think of any number of ways that those resources could have been put to better use. Right off the top of my head.

I am in my early thirties. I pay 12000 a year in federal taxes, of which about 1500 goes to paying the debt that the lazy, greedy boomers dropped on my generation. Will $1500 break me? No. Does it hurt? Yes. Do I have every right on earth to complain about it? Yes.

The boomers (and their parents who still are surviving) are the ones primarily responsible for the debt. My generation and the one behind me should have NO QUALMS WHATSOEVER about making our parents pay some of that debt back. When they get old and whine about Social Security, I ain't listening. If they get a dime, they are getting more than they deserve.

In the last 10-15 years, we really haven't been overspending by that much. Most of our deficit each year is nothing more than the interest payments on the old debt. In other words, the boomer's debt is just rolling with interest because we can't afford to pay even the interest on it.

Some expenses of the federal government are investments in the future: infrastructure spending, educational funding, research and such. But most of it are running costs, that are funded by borrowing from the future (2 trillion has been borrowed from the Social Security Trust Fund, 9.2 trillion was borrowed openly). One can argue that if this debt was held in the US, the government would just be paying some tax money back to investors. But this debt is held mainly outside the US. Even at today's low interest rates, the US pays well over 200 billion dollars a year to China, Germany, Saudi-Arabia and others for their aid in supporting the US.

Someone will have to pay for yesterday's higher standards of living by reducing their own.

Sakur: Just one thought on your post. I can't wait until you become that which you deplore so much. I am going to laugh my ass off listening to you and other shallow minded people like you complain that you can't live on your retirement. Hell I am laughing at you now!