Professor William Shughart discusses here the recent federal spending binge.

I especially like his rejoinder to the “don’t worry — we only owe it to ourselves” line that the spendaholics use when people point out that the federal debt is skyrocketing: federal spending diverts resources from other, more useful things. As Milton Friedman used to point out, the burden of government isn’t what it taxes, but what it spends. We’d have much more productivity and more people gainfully employed now if it weren’t for the massive expansion of government over the last 40 years.