5 ms·

its a derivative being presented as its absolute function

• ajross 17y ago
  Not sure how that's misleading actually. The derivative in this case is "spending - revenue", which is the thing that governments can actually control. A zero-borrowing budget (which would be a huge improvement at least according to the "spending is bad" metric that seems to be en vogue) would show a debt graph that looks almost exactly like your mortgage -- flat and uninformative. Plotting the deficit shows which policies are likely to lead to sustainable government spending and which ones don't.