Governments should not be allowed to borrow money

Brian:"I never stated that the government steals investments, I say that they waste investments. The two are completely separate concepts. I do not doubt that private investors willingly lend the government money; what I doubt is the contention that this money can be used better by the government than it could be if it were invested privately, for the reasons stated above." You never clearly explained nor back up your claims with evidence. Either way, your paying someone to perform different services, whether the government or not. Brian:"Ah, congress, the paragon of rational economic decision-making" Sarcasm aside, congressional subcommittees can certainly engage in political calculation, they just cannot engage in economic calculation. Congressmen probably have a decent feel for what projects to support in order to improve their chances of re-election; but they do not have a method of determining whether the way they expend the resources under their control is beneficial for consumers in the society"s free-market, according to these consumers" own subjective valuations and purchasing decisions. This is what the profit/loss test of private business on the free-market accomplishes, something that the government does not generally make use of." I agree that profit/loss is an aspect of free market capitalism but the fact is, many roads cannot be maintained effectively by private sectors and it may be beyond their means to own roads. Also, the federal government is the only kind of government that can run at a deficit, and they traditionlly build highways and railroads so cost-benefit analysis really doesn't come into play since these roads are used so often and provide such a service to the public. The fact is, whether or not you realize it, you pay for these roads through either tolls from profit seeking companies who want to charge you as high as possible or from the government. I'd choose the government any day over Donald Trump highway. Oh and private businesses actually can build highways and roads, it's just that they don't have the necessary federal mandates to take peoples property and compensate them for it. The article below is about a private road tolling company that went bankrupt, proving private industry fails sometumes http://www.nwitimes.com... http://en.wikipedia.org... Brian: Um, yeah, 6% is pretty big for a government that spends over 20 percent of the world"s biggest economy"s annual GDP every year. That comes out to 1.2% of the country"s annual GDP spent on maintaining a debt that is at best useless, at worst actively harmful. Lol, you do realize this money goes to people who buy bonds from America, so the money flows to investors who stimulate our economy. Brian: I disagree, I think that America would be doing much better without stimulus packages. Of course, the only way to really test our respective contentions empirically would be to go back in time and re-run history so that a stimulus package was not used in 2008, and see what happened. This is impossible, so this question can only be settled via economic theory. Specifically, which makes more sense: Keynesian economic theory, or Austrian School economic theory? This, I think, is a topic for another debate though. Ok, so i understand you disagree that we should try and stimulate our economy during times where consumption is low. But the fact is, stimulus has reverberated markets back up and ready from the great depression to the recent crash, whether in the form of tax breaks or subsidies. so to conclude, should governments be able to have debt? I believe the answer is yes. Debt allows governments to invest in things like infrastructure, education, and tech now and then expect to receive benefits from it later on. To maintain our politic system without the use of debt would be to mandate high tax rates in the status quo to pay off our debts and to drasticly reduce spending. Doing so will not only hurt the poor and their reliance on food services and health services, but it will also harm America's economy by having to pay lots of taxes leading to less aggregate demand. Now let's say we don't pay off our debt yet we fiat a world without American debt, where we can only spend within our means. This would mean that during recessionary periods where tax revenues decreases from less income, the federal government would have to dramatically decrease operations or increase tax rates, both killing jobs. My opponents "solution" to this is by leasing out certain government services to private companies. The problem is that, private companies has the tendency to go bankrupt and fail and try to squeeze as much money from their customers as possible. My opponent sites efficiency, but i would like to site ethics. Should companies be allowed to take from our wallet to profit from a basic service that could instead be provided b a government instead of to the profit of other people? The key difference in this solution is who owns the road itself. A capitalist who seeks profit and doesn't really consider how you feel about the money and may overcharge you more then taxes, or a government official, who may not be efficient. "just institute a temporary wealth tax, say 1% of everyone"s saved-up capital, to be contributed to the government"s coffers immediately. I would recommend not embroiling your country in expensive conflicts to begin with, but this option is always available if absolutely necessary." woa woa woa woa, this clearly is unconstitutional, i have the right to my life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness(originally property, also money makes me happy). That 1% of capital could be used for more efficient things outside of the government spending it. And talking about wars. I'm theoretically mentioning a potential war scenario. The utilization of a nuclear arsenal will not be rational when talking about foreign politics, since once you press that button, everyone else will try to either stop you or nuke you. We still need to maintain a military, but in times of potential defensive wars, we still need the ability to have debt to finance things when waging war. Increasing taxes to fund military operations is illogical since taxes are paid yearly and not in streams. Bonds will be necessary to maintain a fight. I'm not advocating for war, i'm advocating a potential scenario where debt may be useful for the country.