What policies created the current large U.S. public debt?

Answer to Quora question: "What policies created the current large U.S. public debt?"

I think to fully understand U.S. debt we have to understand a certain kind of psychology that David Durham touched upon - albeit quite humorously - in his answer.

Imagine that you have a popular government program that actually funds itself, but that by doing so this program deeply offends a fundamental belief about how the world works, a belief that cries out "No big government!" at every opportunity, and uses the same big hammer of lower taxes to operationalize this belief. What is a person to do about such a successful, self-funding program? Why it needs to be gutted of course. It needs to be made so dysfunctional or controversial that it either loses popularity or can no longer fund itself...or both. And when U.S. Postal service was forced to pre-fund its employees' pensions 75 years in advance (see the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, which was passed without a recorded vote), the impact was predictable. Since that time, the Postal Service has not only struggled to stay comfortably in the black (as it had in the past), but also has eliminated popular but less profitable products and services, and been unable to maintain the customer service level that previous generations have so admired. In fact, in 2012 the USPS experienced its first ever default on a treasury payment.

We see the same psychology behind attempts to roll back Obamacare (which, even by conservative estimates, is clearly projected to help reduce the federal deficit) and countless other government programs. It doesn't matter if those programs benefit all Americans while reducing federal spending, because such success represents an ideological threat to the "no big government/we want lower taxes" camp.

But who are these dastardly naysayers...? Since Republicans are often the loudest and most transparent proponents of this ideology, it would be easy to make this a partisan issue. But Democrats are not innocent here, they are just less vocal. For example, that 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act had plentiful Democratic support for its first (failed) vote in 2005. So who or what is really behind this idealogical movement...?

It's pretty simple really: just follow the money. The parties that benefit most from the hamstringing of government - either those agencies that regulate commerce, or programs that compete with free market alternatives - are the largest multinational corporations. From the perspective of these megaconglomerates, a strong U.S. government is a pesky barrier to profit that must be brought to heal. And, in the best case scenario, the U.S. government should be making money for these corporations, not just staying out of the way. Thus pork barrel projects and excessive military spending do, strangely, go hand-in-hand with an insistence on lower taxes and smaller government, revealing the true motivation behind all of these habits. In contradiction to the battle-cry of libertarian freedom, all of this is really just carefully orchestrated propaganda intended to bend "big government" to capitalism's will, and create a reliable flow of cash into the pockets of folks who have essentially become plutocrats. It is these same influences, after all, who are increasingly successful at manipulating the U.S. political process with Dark money. In support of this overall view, I recommend you watch these: The Billionaires’ Tea Party, Hidden Wars Documentary and United States of ALEC | Moyers & Company | BillMoyers.com.

In specific answer to your question, crippling deficits and accumulation of huge debt are the natural consequence of the "no big government/we want lower taxes" meme. Just as the Postal Service will continue on its downward spiral, so will the the U.S. Government as a whole, becoming more dysfunctional, gridlocked, incompetent and unpopular, to the point when a majority of Americans have lost confidence in the whole affair. Oh wait...that's already happened! Which is exactly what benefits the plutocrats the most, so that they can continue the manipulation without entirely undermining the rule of law that sustains commerce, or losing the lovely cash machine of federal overspending. They are counting on the U.S. government to be "too big to fail," but just weak enough to be easily controlled. Of course many folks at the top of the capitalist food chain would like you to believe that big government inherently causes its own inefficiencies, when in reality many of its greatest failures (including the current paralyzation of Congress) are deliberately orchestrated. Are organizations like the Bilderberg Group behind this orchestration, or is this government-debilitating strategy just the natural habit of commercialism and huge concentrations of wealth? Time will tell. But the point is that there is a specific agenda driving every policy decision that leads to larger U.S. deficits and debt, and that most Democrats and Republicans at all levels of government are just pawns in the game.

My 2 cents.

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