WHAT HAS CHANGED IN TWO THOUSAND YEARS?
Are you more responsible than your government? If so, what can you do about it? How can you carry fiscal prudence from the kitchen table to the voting booth?
If your personal spending rises faster than your income each year, you eventually will go bankrupt. Responsible people understand this and thus refrain from taking on more debt than their income can support. This basic fact is true of individuals, businesses and even governments -- look at Greece and Detroit.
President Obama presented his budget proposal for 2015 last week. As the chart below shows, it calls for increasing government spending from $3.6 trillion this year to $5.9 trillion in 2024. Much of this whopping increase is to be funded through more deficit spending -- thus increasing the debt-to-gross domestic product ratio, which is already at a record high for peacetime.
There is nothing new about governments overspending and accumulating fatal amounts of debt. A quote attributed to Roman senator Cicero (106-43 BC) warned:
"The national budget must be balanced. The public debt must be reduced. The arrogance of the authorities must be moderated and controlled. Payments to foreign governments must be reduced if the nation does not want to go bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance."