Highlights and Lowlights on the Way to a $34 Trillion National Debt

The ethos that impelled generations of American leaders to refrain from laying a heavy debt burden on America’s children and grandchildren is long gone.

The National Debt Clock in Washington on Nov. 13, 2023. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

Commentary

Our country’s Founders abhorred government debt. In his Farewell Address, George Washington urged future congresses and presidents to avoid “the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertion in time of peace to discharge the debts, which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden, which we ourselves ought to bear.”