These Are Good Points..
I think another poster framed it pretty good in saying that there must always be an ability to borrow for an emergency expenditure and that as revenues fluctuate with economic cycles, so could a modest amount of debt and surplus.
Specifically, I mean that we seem to take it for granted that the federal government operates each year with a deficit ("in the red"). Some will cite a couple Clinton years where this did not happen; but, I think it was more do to the building .com bubble than a sustainable phenomena. And, so far that has proven out.
I enjoy reading the various posts on these topics and tend to learn a thing or two. Of course, nothing will get "settled" here; but, it is interesting and educational for me to hear other's perspectives.
A theme that I keep hearing is how the lure of re-election is a primary factor in motivating elected officials to keep giving/promising unsustainable handouts. And, every now and then I hear somebody screaming for term limits. Do you really think limiting elected officials to a single term (even if you had to extend some of the terms to make this rational) would make a big difference?
I'll try to get back to the OP:
I understand that you are trying to distinguish between annual deficits and accumulated debt, but I'm not sure what you mean by "operating in the red".
The "deficit" we normally hear about is the net of this year's cash spending and taxes, where spending includes interest on the debt. So if we got to the point where we had no annual deficit, we would freeze the nominal amount of the debt. If the nominal economy grows (due to number of workers, productivity, or inflation), then debt as a percent of the GDP decreases. If interest rates are stable, then the burden of paying interest on the outstanding debt decreases.
That's essentially what we did from 1945 to about 1980 - years when the federal gov't usually ran a deficit, but the debt as a percent of the GDP kept decreasing.
I agree that it's frustrating that nobody in DC is actually willing to make the decision to balance annual budgets (there appear to be many versions of "let's make future politicians do that"), and I think every democracy should. However, I don't know that it's necessary to go the next mile and pay off the outstanding debt.
I think another poster framed it pretty good in saying that there must always be an ability to borrow for an emergency expenditure and that as revenues fluctuate with economic cycles, so could a modest amount of debt and surplus.
Specifically, I mean that we seem to take it for granted that the federal government operates each year with a deficit ("in the red"). Some will cite a couple Clinton years where this did not happen; but, I think it was more do to the building .com bubble than a sustainable phenomena. And, so far that has proven out.
I enjoy reading the various posts on these topics and tend to learn a thing or two. Of course, nothing will get "settled" here; but, it is interesting and educational for me to hear other's perspectives.
A theme that I keep hearing is how the lure of re-election is a primary factor in motivating elected officials to keep giving/promising unsustainable handouts. And, every now and then I hear somebody screaming for term limits. Do you really think limiting elected officials to a single term (even if you had to extend some of the terms to make this rational) would make a big difference?