Running a deficit is structural to democracy, not cultural

I’m responding to another talking head I saw today on TV.  Who it was hardly matters.  They all make up two or three personalities among the hundreds of them.

Saying there is a “culture of spending” among the political class isn’t helpful.  We already know that.  That is not a diagnosis but a restatement of the problem.

Sure, there may be some other democracy somewhere that spends worse or better and then cultural expectations and standards might be the explanation of the difference.

What if I gave a thousand people each a credit card that they could 1) use to buy consumer goods; 2) use to buy stuff for friends; 3) use to invest in a business; and 4) pass on to a successor leaving him with the use of the card and all responsibility for the bill?

We could then add a point to #2 and say that you get the keep the card as long as a group of people vote for you to continue to hold it.

Now, how many of that thousand are going to be able to hold onto cultural values of thrift and integrity?  Anyone with such values would react to such a card-holding situation the way Gandalf responded when Frodo offered him the Ring of Power.

Politicians directly benefit from making promises and bestowing benefits that they do not have to directly pay for.  There is no way that system can possibly work.  Any human culture put in that situation will get corrupted.

We’re there.  We were never headed anywhere else.

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