Our children are not going to pay off the suckers – us – who naïvely thought they could pass on the Old Maid of government debt to them.

Here is economic reality. Taxpayers and Treasury debt buyers are paying for all of the benefits that voters enjoy as recipients of government-funded programs. Voters are not transferring these costs to future generations. Costs are inescapably the same as benefits. If we receive present benefits, someone pays for these benefits in the present. The only questions are these: Who Wins? Who loses? How soon?

Economists despair about their inability to get across this simple idea: we consume only present goods.

Economics students nod their heads in agreement with the professor. "Yes, yes; we know that." But they don't know it. As soon a