At last! We finally hit $40 trillion in red ink. Since the 2007-2008 financial crash, there’s been an avalanche of news stories on the looming consequences of the skyrocketing national debt. Yet, even with almost 20 years of attention, scrutiny, and endless proposals to reduce the debt, it continues up, up, and away. 

Stanford economist John Taylor warned us in his book First Principles: Five Keys to Prosperity that the national debt’s “soaring upward climb resembles the fireworks on Independence Day.” If this continues burning unabated, “it will be the end of America as we know it. The United States would be an impoverished debtor nation.” He wrote that in 2012 when the national debt clocked in at $16 trillion. Fourteen years later, while still not impoverished, we are getting there. Wait, who is “we?” You, me, the beggar, the banker, the butcher, the candlestick maker, and anyone who has received any remuneration from the government. That means all Americans, with the possible exception of a survivalist living off the grid in a yurt on a Montana mountainside while awaiting the apocalypse.