When a country's debt grows faster than its real GDP over a long enough period of time, some sort of fiscal tightening ("austerity") will become necessary to av

When a country's debt grows faster than its real GDP over a long enough period of time, some sort of fiscal tightening ("austerity") will become necessary to avoid default. This may take the form of reduced spending, increased taxes, or both. Guess who will be paying for that? Future consumers and taxpayers. Not all debt leads to this. Debt which is incurred responsibly and paid off in a timely fashion promotes growth. But there are examples (Greece is one) where debt is used by those in power to sustain their own power structure rather than dealing with economic problems under their watch. To the extent that economic changes negatively affect the ruling elite, those in power will avoid making those changes. If those changes happen to be necessary to preserve future economic stability, then it will be future generations who pay for it.