This [1] is a graph of government receipts (basically all income for the government) over time. It has not only increased exponentially, but basically never dec

This [1] is a graph of government receipts (basically all income for the government) over time. It has not only increased exponentially, but basically never decreased except during major economic crises. Yet somehow in that graph, we ended up more than $36 trillion dollars in debt. It makes it clear that the fundamental issue is not government revenue, but government spending. Every single time you give the government $1 they find a reason to spend $1.05. Why would you expect this to change if you give them $1.05, instead of them now just finding a reason to spend $1.10? I think that democracies are probably just fundamentally incapable of caring about long-term problems like debt when acting irresponsibly has substantial short-term benefits. It's almost like some spin on a tragedy of the commons. [1] - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FGRECPT https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FGRECPT