Every dollar Washington borrows today is a dollar — plus interest — that someone else must repay tomorrow. That someone is your children and grandchildren. The national debt is not an abstraction; it is a mortgage taken out in their names without their signatures.
How We Got Here
Both parties share blame for decades of spending beyond our means, but the pattern is always the same: emergencies justify new spending, the emergency passes, and the spending never does. Programs grow, baselines ratchet upward, and the interest payments on past borrowing crowd out everything else.
Why It Matters to Your Family
A government that borrows heavily competes with families and businesses for credit, putting upward pressure on the interest rates you pay on mortgages, car loans, and credit cards. And when interest on the debt consumes a growing share of the budget, there is less room for the core functions of government — defense, infrastructure, and keeping promises to seniors.
The Conservative Answer
Spending restraint, honest budgeting, and economic growth. Watch the annual appropriations fights closely: that is where fiscal discipline is won or lost, far from the cameras.
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