Quotation of the Day…

(Don Boudreaux)

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… is from page 198 of George Will’s 1992 book, Restoration:

The dissolution of political, cultural and constitutional restraints on Congress obviously has served the interests of legislative careerists. They have a permanent, inherent vocational incentive to borrow to finance current expenditures.

DBx: Yes.

And to all deficit doves I say this: Because government borrowing today must be repaid by tomorrow’s citizens-taxpayers, today’s citizens-taxpayers have incentives to spend irresponsibly. After all, those who must repay the funds borrowed today are, in many cases, not yet born and so they are not around to ensure that their interests are responded to when fiscal decisions are made.

Deficit financing allows today’s citizens-taxpayers, and the political class who ‘represent’ them, to free ride on the fruits of other-people’s labor and resources. Government will thus spend too much and spend even more foolishly. And so such a method of government financing is economically damaging, as well as ethically corrupt.