National Debts

[Hutch Hogan]

With a rise of skepticism of government spending and the increase worries of governmental spending in countries like the United States and Greece, some have stated that it is immoral for governments to spend more than what it takes in as the money must eventually be paid back. 

Thoughts? 

[Vertigo_One [Ops Mod]]

I think it would be more immoral for the government to stop all funding to programs that people rely on. If governments were to only spend exactly what they get in income all the time, then taxes would have to be raised phonomoenally. As John pointed out in several videos, the nature of the economy as a whole has to function on debt.

[Abreo]

The majority of the money the United States owes is to itself, which is something that's really telling about how complicated this situation is for a country.

It's hard though to just say "Well fuck me, why are we spending all this money we don't have again? That's kind of stupid, we should just totally stop or something." I mean incompetence obviously has something to do with it somewhere along the line but it's not totally easy, or sometimes even possible for a government to stop spending more money than it brings in. You can argue that it's immoral for the government to not even try to lower the debt the best it can but this stuff really isn't easy. The stars have to perfectly align for a country like the US to start drastically lowering their debt. It's not like (what is it now?) our nearly 16 trillion dollar debt is just getting eaten up by hungry government employees.

[Hutch Hogan]

To make you feel comfortable, the US pays a cost equivalent to 1/3rd of the Canadian GDP on interest on the debt. 

[Abreo]

I feel so comfortable now. *breaks down and sobs*

[Hutch Hogan]

The US also puts itself into deficit through mandatory spending alone. 

[Latch33570]

"sobbing too"