… is from page 334 of George Will’s 2019 book, The Conservative Sensibility:
The now normal practice of running enormous [budget] deficits in all economic conditions is additional evidence that American democracy is fully susceptible to the descent of democracy into looting. It is looting future generations.
DBx: This reality is most distressing.
Ordinary looters – those who, for example, rob convenience stores, pick pedestrians’ pockets, and snatch purses from little old ladies – at least confront their victims personally. In contrast, looters who work in stately buildings along Pennsylvania Avenue almost never confront their victims personally. These latter looters are akin to bomber crews high in the sky who, if they see any negative effects of their handiwork at all, they see these effects only as little puffs of smoke. Comically called “leaders,” these elected looters are cowards’ cowards, yet ones who too-often dispense extraordinary destruction.
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By the way, for those who doubt that government debt is a burden on future generations – a burden eased not in the slightest if we “owe it to ourselves” – see Jim Buchanan’s 1958 book, Public Principles of Public Debt.
