Is it Immoral for Government Senior Citizens to Accrue Debt that They Will Not Live to Pay?
Thomas Jefferson was right.
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There are some things to get out of the way.
- Thomas Jefferson was a slaveowner- slavery is wrong.
- Thomas Jefferson died in debt because of his father. The irony is not lost here.
- The average age of senators is 64.3 years. (.7 years shy of senior citizenship)
- This is not an Elon Musk-eqsue declaration of limitations on politician age.
That being said…
- The Speaker of the House is 81 years old, the Majority Leader is 71 years old, the Minority Leader is 79 years old, and the President is 79 years old.
Let us take a salient example of Americans saddled with debt.
The war in Afghanistan alone has cost 2 trillion dollars over two decades. American taxpayers have spent 968 billion dollars in interest payments for post-9/11 wars.
I am willing to wager that the vast majority of Americans could find better use of nearly 1 trillion dollars (968 billion dollars in interest) than on the military-industrial complex.
We could solve world hunger. But as I have written, world hunger is big business, and poverty garners huge profits.
When speaking about the government, Thomas Jefferson said:
“What is to hinder them from creating a perpetual debt? The laws of nature, I answer. The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead. The will and the power of man expire with his life, by nature’s law.”
Thomas Jefferson had a point, and it seems as if the creation of perpetual debt is here. Is it right for future generations to be born with a burden? The burden of the debt created by their grandparents?
Lawmakers, many of them senior citizens are accruing debt that will disproportionately affect future generations.
Baby boomers are doing alright, paying half the price of tuition than members of Generation Z. From 2020 to…
