One of my ongoing frustrations is the obfuscation of simple concepts in our political discourse. In many areas, the details of policy are quite intricate and complex, but the concepts are not.
Over the past two years, the importance of this has been demonstrated in particularly excruciating ways when it comes to the resurgence of 'deficit hawks', those on again, off again commentators who pop up nonrandomly depending upon whether a Democrat or Republican is proposing spending money.
Now, with us largely vanquishing the GOP from national relevance, this shouldn't be an issue any more.
Yet, it still is, because this phenomenon isn't just partisan. It also happens along the continuum between those who believe in corporate-driven, trickle-down economic growth and those who believe in people-centered, bottom-up economic growth.
What I want to offer simply and concisely is the observation that there is no ideological debate in this country about whether the federal government should spend money or not. Anarchists, while an interesting academic perspective, wield precisely zero influence on anything, and even Libertarians support government spending. The entirety of the debate is about what kind of spending should be undertaken.
With that understanding, it is very simple to make the following observations without them being at all conflicting or mutually exclusive. We should worry about the effects of the size of the public debt over the long term. If spending a dollar isn't worth it, we shouldn't spend the dollar. But, if spending a dollar is worth it, then we should spend the dollar. There is no one, Republican, Democrat, or Independent, who thinks the national debt itself is a reason to not spend money. Rather, all political perspectives believe that debt shouldn't be incurred for wasteful spending.
The debate is about what is valuable and what is wasteful.
The relevant question isn't, can we afford something? Yes, We Can.
The relevant question is, is it worth it?
We can argue that we should cut military spending and corporate welfare because they are damaging our long-term fiscal solvency while also arguing that we should spend money on a whole host of areas where productive investments will make our country better. Indeed, that's the most consistent argument, and it is overwhelmingly the desire of Americans, in particular, those who identify as Democrats.
We have options for allocating federal dollars differently than we currently allocate them. We should worry both about too much bad spending and too little good spending.