The Founding Fathers On Debt
“A departure from principle becomes a precedent for a second; that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of society is reduced to mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering… And the fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression.”
- Thomas Jefferson
Allow a government to decline paying its debts and you overthrow all public morality — you unhinge all the principles that preserve the limits of free constitutions.Nothing can more affect national prosperity than a constant and systematic attention to extinguish the present debt and to avoid as much as possibly the incurring of any new debt.
- Alexander Hamilton
Avoid occasions of expense. . . and avoid likewise the accumulation of debt not only by shunning occasions of expense but by vigorous exertions to discharge the debts, not throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear.”
- George Washington
“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
“When you run in debt; you give to another power over your liberty”
- Benjamin Franklin
***CHINA CURRENTLY OWNS AROUND $2.3 TRILLION OF THE DEBT OF THE UNITED STATES***
