# Which are the best arguments for paying off the national debt and which are best for not doing so? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 23, 2017, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-the-best-arguments-for-paying-off-the-national-debt-and-which-are-best-for-not-doing-so/780516 "2017-02-23T00:13:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2017, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-the-best-arguments-for-paying-off-the-national-debt-and-which-are-best-for-not-doing-so/780516/41 "2017-02-25T05:43:06Z")
Here’s another argument for paying off the debt that has nothing to do with taxes: the public debt soaks up investment capital. Some people have extra capital and they’re looking for opportunities to invest it. Other people have ideas for new businesses and want some of that investment capital. In an ideal economy, these two groups get together and form partnerships. The result is everybody wins (well, except for the people who make bad investments). The national debt interferes with this. It soaks up a huge amount of potential investment capital that gets locked in low-risk government bonds instead of being used to build new businesses and expand the economy. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2017, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-the-best-arguments-for-paying-off-the-national-debt-and-which-are-best-for-not-doing-so/780516/42 "2017-02-25T05:47:27Z")
Now, to be fair, here’s an argument in favor of _not_ paying off the national debt. It goes all the way back to Alexander Hamilton. If somebody owes you money, you have a stake in their future well-being. You would them to not only survive but to prosper so they’ll be able to pay you back when the debt comes do. Hamilton argued that the same principle applies to countries. If the United States issues government bonds which are payable in the future, then everyone who buys one of those bonds has a financial stake in future prosperity of the United States. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2017, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-the-best-arguments-for-paying-off-the-national-debt-and-which-are-best-for-not-doing-so/780516/43 "2017-02-25T05:51:09Z")
First of all, “paying off the national debt” is, at best, a long-term goal. $20 trillion is a lot of money — even the “most Presidential President ever” doesn’t keep that kind of cash in his pocket. A more realistic goal is to reduce the deficit, hoping perhaps for an eventual surplus with the debt being gradually reduced. A good way to measure debt is _as a percentage of GDP._ With that measure, debt may actually be declining right now, though only very slightly. Paying $103 next year for $100 in hand today is a perfectly ordinary acknowledgement that money has a present value and can be put to work. Speaking of this as a transfer from poor to rich, or an important impediment to the effectiveness of government spending, is very misleading. Having said that, there may be severely bad consequences if the debt continues to grows, or if interest rates rise. No, government debt isn’t the same as household debt, but there are more similarities than some suggest, even if the government debt is in its own sovereign currency. For example, if you ask a bank for a loan, they will be very interested in whether you intend to spend the money on real estate improvements, or just on hookers and blow for your parties. Similarly, deficit spending to improve infrastructure has more merit than deficit spending to afford tax cuts for the rich so they can spend on hookers and blow. > [@jshore](#): > > At any rate, it is generally agreed upon that during good economic times is when one should shrink deficits…and even perhaps run a surplus, whereas during bad economic times, running a deficit can actually be the only thing that saves you from the vicious cycle of a demand contractions that leads to a major depression. I would agree with this … if you replace “it is generally agreed” with “it was generally agreed during the Rational Era.” Cheney famously, and evilly, said that Reagan “proved deficits don’t matter.” Krugman is on record implying that rationalists are suckers if they try to reduce the debt — the right-wing will just undo this work next time they take power. > [@Common\_Tater](#): > > The debt is too large to pay off, I doubt any sane person expects otherwise. It guess it seems as distant to you as the Age of Dinosaurs, but in 1993 the executive and legislative branches were both controlled by an anti-deficit party. The Clinton Administration made substantial progress toward debt and deficit reduction — so significant that Greenspan was complaining that more government borrowing was needed! :smack: … that failure to keep issuing Treasury long bonds would lead to disruption since some financial contracts were tied to long bond rates. This “instability” caused by Clinton’s deficit reduction was actually cited as an excuse for the Bush tax cuts. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2017, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-the-best-arguments-for-paying-off-the-national-debt-and-which-are-best-for-not-doing-so/780516/44 "2017-02-25T17:42:56Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > You’re forgetting the exemption amount. If you make $51,000, you will pay no more than $6,100 for a single person with no deductions. Sorry; that didn’t show up on the IRS site. > [@](#): > > It is not. You’re using a vague term – “a lot” – with no context. Is $100 a lot of money? For a beer, yes. For revenue for the Walmart Corporation? No. As I showed you before, the bottom 50% of income earners pay 3% of income taxes. I tried to calculate, but don’t have the data (and, as you note, I missed a term anyway.) So, can you tell me, please, what proportion of all income tax receipts is paid by people at or under the median income? (I’m talking about individual income tax, not corporate.) I can only guess, but I’m thinking it’s more than 3%. In any case, even 3% of 1.7 trillion dollars is…a lot of money. (The same U.S. Government site that said that also said that corporate income tax receipts are only about 1/4 of the personal income tax receipts, so, shrug, leave 'em in. It doesn’t alter my point much.) (And, yes, I did use the term “a lot of money” without defining it. That’s why it is so absurd for **HurricaneDitka** to have flatly rejected the claim without bothering to analyze it.) ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2017, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-the-best-arguments-for-paying-off-the-national-debt-and-which-are-best-for-not-doing-so/780516/45 "2017-02-25T17:59:09Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > I tried to calculate, but don’t have the data (and, as you note, I missed a term anyway.) So, can you tell me, please, what proportion of all income tax receipts is paid by people at or under the median income? (I’m talking about individual income tax, not corporate.) I can only guess, but I’m thinking it’s more than 3%. In any case, even 3% of 1.7 trillion dollars is…a lot of money. > **[Summary of the Latest Federal Income Tax Data, 2015 Update](https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-data-2015-update/)** > > The IRS released new data on individual income taxes for 2013, showing the number of taxpayers, AGI, and income tax shares by income percentiles > [@](#): > > Key Findings > > In 2013, 138.3 million taxpayers reported earning $9.03 trillion in adjusted gross income and paid $1.23 trillion in income taxes. … > > In 2012, the top 50 percent of all taxpayers (69.2 million filers) paid 97.2 percent of all income taxes while the bottom 50 percent paid the remaining 2.8 percent. > > The top 1 percent (1.3 million filers) paid a greater share of income taxes (37.8 percent) than the bottom 90 percent (124.5 million filers) combined (30.2 percent). > > The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid a higher effective income tax rate than any other group, at 27.1 percent, which is over 8 times higher than taxpayers in the bottom 50 percent (3.3 percent). If we are saying that 3% of income taxes is a lot of money; then what do propose is not a lot of money for half of the population to take the burden for in terms of share of income taxes? ---
**Author:** ![yesanything](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@yesanything](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yesanything)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2017, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-the-best-arguments-for-paying-off-the-national-debt-and-which-are-best-for-not-doing-so/780516/46 "2017-02-25T20:33:48Z")
The debt is an enormous looming problem. One possibility is to declare it odious debt [Odious debt - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odious_debt) ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2017, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-the-best-arguments-for-paying-off-the-national-debt-and-which-are-best-for-not-doing-so/780516/47 "2017-02-25T22:29:45Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > It depends on the question you’re asking. The question I see being asked in this stream of the thread is whether paying interest on the debt, and having a debt to pay interest on, is a transfer of wealth up the income scale. For that question, the usual ‘the poor don’t pay taxes/yes they do’ debate is of limited relevance. In the reductionist sense that interest on debt is a govt expenditure (I’ll say for the third time now it’s net negative real expenditure at the moment, and the claim that issuing debt transfers wealth from poor to rich is clearly wrong on that basis alone) and one believes that whatever % the poor pay is too much, then every govt expenditure is a ‘transfer’ relative to the ‘correct’ level of burden on each group a person envisions. But there would be nothing special about debt service compared to any other govt spending in that case. I think you’d need to specify what ‘question’ makes the standard ‘the poor don’t pay/do pay’ specifically relevant to debt or debt service. I don’t see it. I think rather that several of you may just be more comfortable with that standard debate and would like to have it whether it’s really relevant here or not, which is also consistent with ignoring the point that under current market conditions the govt gets a real return issuing debt at its average maturity not the investors. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2017, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-the-best-arguments-for-paying-off-the-national-debt-and-which-are-best-for-not-doing-so/780516/48 "2017-02-26T01:32:35Z")
> [@Corry\_El](#): > > The question I see being asked in this stream of the thread is whether paying interest on the debt, and having a debt to pay interest on, is a transfer of wealth up the income scale. For that question, the usual ‘the poor don’t pay taxes/yes they do’ debate is of limited relevance. … > I think you’d need to specify what ‘question’ makes the standard ‘the poor don’t pay/do pay’ specifically relevant to debt or debt service. I don’t see it. I’m not sure how anyone can miss the relevance. Let’s take two countries, each with heavy debt. Country A taxes only the rich, with the poor paying nothing at all. Country B taxes only the poor, with the middle class on up paying nothing. Let’s also say (just for this example) that the rich are the only beneficiaries of interest in bonds. You don’t see the relevance of whether the poor pay taxes as having any relevance in Country A or Country B as to whether there’s a wealth transfer from poor to rich going on? WTF? ---
**Author:** ![igor\_frankensteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/839c29/32.png) [@igor\_frankensteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/igor_frankensteen)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2017, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-the-best-arguments-for-paying-off-the-national-debt-and-which-are-best-for-not-doing-so/780516/49 "2017-02-26T02:14:41Z")
I want to put in a couple of relatively basic points. First of all, that all the talk about who is and isn’t paying for the debt/deficit is probably entirely wrong. Not because any of the details everyone chooses to focus on are lies, they are wrong, because no matter WHO pays a bill in this world’s economy, they ALWAYS pass the cost of paying that bill, on to the next person down the line. No matter what they claim, taxes that businesses pay, are passed on to their customers, every time. Just as the cost of labor is passed on, the cost of borrowing is passed on, and so on. Whenever you spend money anywhere, you are part of what is paying the debt. The other more important point, is that what’s critical about this, isn’t whether the debt is a good or bad thing. The most important thing is, that everyone in a position of power is USING THE EXISTENCE of the debt, to manipulate their way into getting additional changes to the world, which will benefit them. That is why every time the dollar is “weak,” we hear reports about how THAT’S bad, and when the dollar is “strong,” we hear reports about how THAT’S bad. Republicans declared in the last century, that deficits didn’t matter. Until the Democrats were in charge, and then suddenly the deficits were a huge problem, and it was important to get those spendthrift Democrats out of office again, so they could fix it. Once in, they ran the deficits up again, and used that as a reason to start cutting social programs. I really have no idea myself, what’s good or bad about deficits or the national debt, because so many people have been playing politics over it throughout my lifetime, that I can’t tell who to trust. And economists come and go, and come up with conflicting theoretical ideas about it. What I do know right at the moment, is that we need to be VERY careful about what tricks and games that we allow whoever is in charge to play, when it comes to how they go about addressing whichever stance they choose to take. If they decide to “fix” the debt by either raising taxes on the middle class, OR by cutting benefits to them, there will be another fall off in the ability of the middle and lower classes to spend their money and drive the economy, so we’ll go into another “recession.” If instead, they decide to play games with how they pay it, such as refusing to raise the debt ceiling as a show of political determination, then the rates we pay to borrow will rise again, and the debt will get much worse. If they decide to “fix” it by raising import duties, there is a risk that the people we raise those on will raise their own in turn, and we’ll be right back where we started. I have no idea what does need to be done, in other words, I just know that it’s a LOT more complicated than making some self-righteous, oversimplified pronouncement about how no one in their right mind would try to get away with this as the head of a family, and so on. ---
**Author:** ![Weisshund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba8739/32.png) [@Weisshund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weisshund)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2017, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-the-best-arguments-for-paying-off-the-national-debt-and-which-are-best-for-not-doing-so/780516/50 "2017-02-26T03:16:57Z")
> [@jshore](#): > > I’m not sure there really are any good arguments for paying off the national debt. As one who probably does see debt like i would view personal debt, why is it not a good reason to have the national debt paid in full? Honest question. ---
**Author:** ![Weisshund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba8739/32.png) [@Weisshund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weisshund)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2017, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-the-best-arguments-for-paying-off-the-national-debt-and-which-are-best-for-not-doing-so/780516/51 "2017-02-26T03:39:00Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > We were talking about the federal debt. What taxes do the poor pay on the federal level? Capital gains tax? Inheritance tax? We don’t have a national sales tax. .) Federal income tax on their pay checks? Unless i am misunderstanding? I guess i would consider myself poor in a $1700 dollar paycheck i paid Federal Tax $397 SS $139.75 Medicare $37.95 State 0 we have no state income tax Now i am not saying that is any amount to compare to some guy who normally pays $10000 a month in federal taxes, though i could probably breeze along worry free on his take home pay 😃 I’m still giving them $1600 But it still counts, and with 0 wives or children, they will keep most of it. Again, i get that it isnt any great amount over all, but it’s a lot for me or feels like it. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-the-best-arguments-for-paying-off-the-national-debt-and-which-are-best-for-not-doing-so/780516/52 "2017-02-27T19:15:44Z")
> [@Weisshund](#): > > As one who probably does see debt like i would view personal debt, why is it not a good reason to have the national debt paid in full? > Honest question. Old proverb: “If you owe the bank thousands of dollars, you have a problem. If you owe the bank billions of dollars, _the bank_ has a problem.” As mentioned above, whoever our government owes money to has a financial stake in the long term stability of our country. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-the-best-arguments-for-paying-off-the-national-debt-and-which-are-best-for-not-doing-so/780516/53 "2017-02-27T19:22:57Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > Old proverb: “If you owe the bank thousands of dollars, you have a problem. If you owe the bank billions of dollars, _the bank_ has a problem.” > > As mentioned above, whoever our government owes money to has a financial stake in the long term stability of our country. Sure, but at the same time, it would be better to have a national debt of $10 trillion than $20 trillion. At ten trillion, plenty of other countries, or domestic debt-holders, would still have a stake in the long-term well being of America. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-the-best-arguments-for-paying-off-the-national-debt-and-which-are-best-for-not-doing-so/780516/54 "2017-02-27T20:33:07Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Sure, but at the same time, it would be better to have a national debt of $10 trillion than $20 trillion. At ten trillion, plenty of other countries, or domestic debt-holders, would still have a stake in the long-term well being of America. But the question I answered was “why don’t we pay it off in full?” ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-the-best-arguments-for-paying-off-the-national-debt-and-which-are-best-for-not-doing-so/780516/55 "2017-02-27T20:42:29Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > But the question I answered was “why don’t we pay it off in full?” Ah OK, got it. However - I think that no national debt is better than some national debt. There are still many other reasons for other countries, or America’s own people, to have a stake in America’s longterm future, than merely holding debt. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-the-best-arguments-for-paying-off-the-national-debt-and-which-are-best-for-not-doing-so/780516/56 "2017-02-27T21:10:07Z")
The national debt in and of itself isn’t a bad thing – the original treasury was created for the purpose of being able to incur a debt so that the government could spend money. The problem with a national debt, as it is with a debt on, say, a credit card, is when we can’t make the minimum payments, or when the minimum payments on the debt (the interest) become so large that they make spending on anything else difficult or painful. We’re still easily able to pay our interest on the debt, but it’s no longer without consequence. We have less disposable money to spend. There is less room for the federal government to spend money. Maybe it’s not at the crisis stage yet, but it’s no longer a problem that can be ignored and passed to another administration and another congress into perpetuity. Unfortunately, we’ve missed a golden opportunity to pay money toward the debt. We’ve had 8+ years of economic expansion, and the last 2-3 years have been pretty solid - to the extent that incomes have actually started to rise. We could have made the super wealthy and just the plain old wealthy – and businesses too – pay more taxes toward the debt. But we missed that chance. And it’s likely that we’ll have a recession some time in the next 12-24 months. Republicans and fiscal responsibility? My ass. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-the-best-arguments-for-paying-off-the-national-debt-and-which-are-best-for-not-doing-so/780516/57 "2017-02-27T21:32:54Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > Republicans and fiscal responsibility? My ass. You’re not just now noticing this, right? They’ve been that way since Reagan. ---
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2017, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-the-best-arguments-for-paying-off-the-national-debt-and-which-are-best-for-not-doing-so/780516/58 "2017-02-28T03:35:06Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Here’s another argument for paying off the debt that has nothing to do with taxes: the public debt soaks up investment capital. > > Some people have extra capital and they’re looking for opportunities to invest it. Other people have ideas for new businesses and want some of that investment capital. In an ideal economy, these two groups get together and form partnerships. The result is everybody wins (well, except for the people who make bad investments). > > The national debt interferes with this. It soaks up a huge amount of potential investment capital that gets locked in low-risk government bonds instead of being used to build new businesses and expand the economy. Thanks Little Nemo. Thank you all. Vey helpful ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2017, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-the-best-arguments-for-paying-off-the-national-debt-and-which-are-best-for-not-doing-so/780516/59 "2017-02-28T07:40:56Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Here’s another argument for paying off the debt that has nothing to do with taxes: the public debt soaks up investment capital. > > Some people have extra capital and they’re looking for opportunities to invest it… > > The national debt interferes with this. It soaks up a huge amount of potential investment capital that gets locked in low-risk government bonds instead of being used to build new businesses and expand the economy. Things aren’t so simple. Suppose that after it meets its obligations the government decides whether to pay for them by taxing the rich or borrowing from Japan and China. It is the _latter_ decision which, at least in the short-term, leaves capital in the hands of U.S. investors. Or consider the Quantitative Easing program which has essentially printed new banknotes and stuffed them into private bank vaults, replacing their government debt paper. The investment capital is there, for anyone with a business plan good enough to justify borrowing it. Viewed this way, it is the _nature_ of government’s spending which is key, not its financing mechanism. Repairing bridges and hiring teachers improves the U.S. economy in a way which junkets to Tahiti and exploding munitions in the Middle East do not. ---
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2017, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-the-best-arguments-for-paying-off-the-national-debt-and-which-are-best-for-not-doing-so/780516/60 "2017-02-28T11:24:44Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Things aren’t so simple. Suppose that after it meets its obligations the government decides whether to pay for them by taxing the rich or borrowing from Japan and China. It is the _latter_ decision which, at least in the short-term, leaves capital in the hands of U.S. investors. > > Or consider the Quantitative Easing program which has essentially printed new banknotes and stuffed them into private bank vaults, replacing their government debt paper. The investment capital is there, for anyone with a business plan good enough to justify borrowing it. > > Viewed this way, it is the _nature_ of government’s spending which is key, not its financing mechanism. Repairing bridges and hiring teachers improves the U.S. economy in a way which junkets to Tahiti and exploding munitions in the Middle East do not. Very true. Thanks again septimus. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-the-best-arguments-for-paying-off-the-national-debt-and-which-are-best-for-not-doing-so/780516.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-the-best-arguments-for-paying-off-the-national-debt-and-which-are-best-for-not-doing-so/780516.md?page=4)