The Credit Card Analogy Fallacy

[dross]

I hear all the time our out of control spending described as "putting it on a credit card." That analogy fails, IMO.

If I run up debt on my credit card, I'll either pay it back or I won't. If I die owing thousands in credit card debt, that's not a concern of my daughter's. She's only responsible for the debt she enters into voluntarily.

With our national debt, our parents and grandparents consistently decided and constructed the government in such a way that they didn't have to pay the costs of the benefits they received. They voted to make me and my daughter pay for the benefits they enjoyed.

Many of these entitlements, like lavish public pensions, are presented as a contract, and as a debt owed to those to whom they were promised.

How can my parents promise that my daughter will someday pay for the promises they made but couldn't afford?

If the analogy were correct, our kids should also be responsible for our credit card debt.

 

[38special]

“I go on the principle that a public debt is a public curse, and in a Republican Government a greater curse than any other”
- James Madison

I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and in our comforts, in our labor and in our amusements. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.
- Thomas Jefferson

 

[ATOMonkey]

There some founders who believed no law should last longer than a generation so that the children would not have to carry the burden of their parent's decisions.

Afterall, if a law is a good law, then it can always be renewed by the new generation.

How far we have "progressed"...