We have had a national debt since our nation’s beginning — in the American Revolutionary War.
The Constitution mandates that Congress "coin" the nation's currency for "the common welfare". Given that our nation was starting from scratch and the gold supply belonged to the Crown, debt was the only way forward for the revolution.
At that time, that meant debt to foreign interests, but America was a resource rich place with several potential trading partners willing to bet on its fortunes.
During President Andrew Jackson, the U.S. was able to zero out its debt,
That was only because he was an idiot and didn't understand how money creation worked. He actually sold off a lot of our sovereign territory and willingly caused the worst depression in our history to accomplish what was essentially a useless gesture. That gesture was nulified by the massive spending required to fix things only 3 months into Van Buren's administration. He was such a horrible person that his other foibles attracted more notoriety and people forgot the depression thing over time. There is nothing like genocide, murder, and torture to distract people.
The deficit would take a dip after the end of the Cold War, but by 2008, the gross national debt had reached $10.3 trillion, ten times what it was in 1980.
Dip is such an appropriate choice of words for Clinton's "surplus" budgets that many economists believe were the beginning of the '08 great recession. No amount of private sector debt creation can sustain the economy without sufficient high power money needed to net retire it.
It was only a matter of time before the business cycle took a downturn and the defaults began piling up. Bush's deficit spending staved off the inevitable, but not for long enough. Sadly, Clinton is still the left's hero for his manipulation that forced everyone to use their homes as ATM cards to finance their own economy. Private sector debt can only sustain the economy as long as GDP can increase continually to "roll over" debt. It can't "NET" retire itself. Only "deficit" spending by Congress can do that.
I believe today’s society is desensitized to the value of money. We have also been desensitized to the devaluing of our money.
Yep, roll out some really scary big numbers. Right on cue, and remind everyone of "devaluation" which hasn't been a thing since FDR took us off the gold standard domestically in '34. It's not about facts and maths, but about "feels", right?
In conclusion, I want to state that we as Americans have to stand against wasteful spending that will affect our children and their children.
There was too much wrong in the middle of your rant to even address, so I skipped ahead to the conclusion where you misstate the entirety of monetary and fiscal policy. You really can't be blamed as this false narrative has persisted since neoliberals took over both political parties and dictate what is allowed to be doled out to us "little people".
Spending at the federal level is not a zero sum matter of redistribution. Congress is the monopoly issuer of the sovereign fiat currency that it can never run out of, regardless of its revenue position. Every dollar spent and not taxed back is someone's monetary asset in the private sector.
This means that the "debt" that lights everyone's hair on fire on cue around appropriations time isn't actually a debt the private sector is responsible for. It is the dollars left in the economy after taxation that "pay for" the real resources and labor the government uses.
A debt in one sector must always be balanced with an "asset" in another or some accountants will have to stay late to find their error. Similarly, a tax collected or a bond sold cannot "fund" future spending as it first encounters the debt that created it in the government sector and doesn't survive that except on a spreadsheet tracking dollars destroyed or left in the economy as our money supply.
"ALL" spending by Congress is brand new dollars spent into the private sector, and there is no "infinite+1" in accounting that better enables Congress to create those dollars because of taxing or borrowing. No one as yet has figured out how to collect or borrow what doesn't yet exist, so it is more accurate to state that (federal) spending "FUNDS" both bonds and taxes than the other way around.
The national debt exists only in the government sector as a debt (tax credits owed to holders of dollars/bonds). In the private sector it represents our national savings denominated in Treasury bonds and reserves. It is required to net retire private bank debt or be net saved, which is why ONLY dollars created by Congress can purchase Treasury bonds or pay federal taxes.
