As we approach America's birthday on July 4, it might be a good time to consider what the founding fathers would have thought about this massive indebtedness.

James Madison might have summed it up best when he called a national debt "a national curse."

I go on the principle that a Public Debt is a Public curse and in a Rep. Govt. a greater than in any other."

The antifederalist writer Brutus made a similar point, writing.

 I can scarcely contemplate a greater calamity that could befall this country, than to be loaded with a debt exceeding their ability ever to discharge."

Thomas Jefferson said he considered "public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared," and he warned that in order to preserve the people's independence, "we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt."

He also talked about the urgency of paying off debts, saying it would help preserve peace.

It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which, if acted on, would save one half the wars of the world"

Jefferson went on to explain just what would happen if we failed to heed his warning.

If we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries & our comforts, in our labors & our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor 16 hours in the 24 give the earnings of 15 of these to the government for their debts and daily expences; and the 16th being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal & potatoes."