LETTER: Borrowing money to run U.S. is easy; paying interest isn’t

To Ozaukee Press:

I was waiting for the punchline as I read what I thought was John Strauss’ satire in his letter to the editor in last week’s Ozaukee Press, “Don’t fret over deficit; we don’t have to pay the money back.” Alas, there was no punchline. He was being serious.

He partially credited our standard of living on our country’s debt, and proposed we double down and borrow more to put more fake surplus money into the economy.  All this while actually accusing others of misunderstanding and distorting facts.

The elephant in the room that Strauss totally ignores is that debt requires the payment of interest. Even though we are not paying down the debt, we are paying interest on it. No one is loaning this country money for free. By not paying down the debt we are forever paying for yesterday’s irresponsibility. When interest rates go up, this country will be in serious trouble. We just may run out of dollars.

Imagine if this country had no interest payments to make. We could fix Strauss’ potted roads and weak bridges and pay less in taxes. This would leave real surplus money in our economy.

I will vote for representatives who understand this.

Lee Roller
Grafton