By Richard Ebeling, includes “… Warnings about Deficits and Government Debt from Long Ago The famous Scottish philosopher, historian and economist, David Hume (1711-1776), expressed the danger in his essay, “Of Public Credit” (1741), over two hundred and fifty year ago: “It is very tempting to a minister [in the government] to employ such an expediency, as enables him to make a great figure during his administration, without overburdening the people with taxes, or exciting any immediate clamors against himself. The practice, therefore, of contracting debt will almost infallibly be abused, in every government. It would scarcely be more imprudent to given a prodigal son a credit in every banker’s shop in London, than to empower a statesman to draw bills [borrow money], in this manner, upon posterity.”…”
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