What is not being discussed is the fact that this meaningless argument over how much the government spends and borrows completely misses the actual reason our country, like pretty much all others, is not enjoying the prosperity of it's own labors.

Central banking

There is no sensible reason why banks should be endowed with the power to create money, period. When they create money and then lend it to the government (or you and me) they apply interest to that money they've just created. Who's gonna create the interest to pay it? That's right -the same bank. But when they create the money to pay the interest THAT money will also have an attached interest rate. This is not rocket science. it's what people mean when they say we are using "debt money". It is a mathematical and real impossibility to ever pay back all the money. The system is sealed with the assurance that perpetual debt is included in all economic scenarios the world over. 

For about the last century (much longer if we wish to discuss the finer points), the banks have convinced us that our common sense is not to be trusted. They've done this by means of threat and also by the fulfillment of those threats when required via mass money contractions and the consequent foreclosures and other confiscations that ensue due to said contractions. I guess in 1890 it could be argued that things were hidden from the people -information wasn't out there, so they succumbed to the pressures of highly bankrolled propaganda and other efforts to promote the central banking idea. But what is our excuse? None of this is hidden -it's all there for everyone to see. The process by which money is created in the 21st century is easily seen. Banks create it and then lend it to the government. The government then gives that money away to the states or other endeavors and then somehow has to pay it back to the central bank but they can only do so by borrowing more money from the bank. It's insanity!

Was Thomas Jefferson an imbecile? Andrew Jackson? The second presidential assassination in the US (James Garfield) was very likely related to his position on central banking. All of the panics this country experienced up to the creation of the Federal Reserve were created by central banking interests. At the turn of the 20th Century, these interests, in an effort to squeeze the American people into accepting a central bank, had contracted the money supply to such a degree that the majority of money left in circulation consisted of Abe Lincoln's old Greenbacks, which had all but been completely retired by then. At any time, the federal government could have chosen to create it's own money, and instead of borrowing from someone else, take that money and spend it into the economy. No debt -no interest. The money is legal tender authorized by the government, critical functions of government are perpetuated by the spending of it by Congress (such as provisions for the military and other Constitutionally authorized uses), and the funds then disperse throughout the economy. Returned to the Congress as taxes, appropriate amounts if any can be created or retired depending on the demand for it.

Are people content to be enslaved or can they just not summon the mental faculty to see their bonds? US savings bonds to be exact.

So what of gold and silver? "Real money", "God's money", "honest money". Crap money. If we are forced to back all of our money with gold then the people that control the gold will control the money. That's fine in a dictatorship or monarchy, where the government does in fact control all the gold, but in a free society government shouldn't be allowed to hoard wealth, and individuals that have, by valid means or otherwise, hoarded vast amounts of gold, should not be allowed control of the nation's money because they most obviously will make use of that control for their own ends. The people, through their elected officials, should be in charge of the quantity of money circulating in the economy. Whether or not the actual money has inherent value is meaningless. The purpose of money is not to have value, it is to facilitate the transaction of value. You can't eat a gold brick any more than you could a dollar bill. It's the bread that has value. In a free society the government should not control the gold but should control the currency. By default and with no other argument it must then be determined that money should be created in fiat by the government and be backed, as in times of old, by the full faith and credit of the nation.

There are many different plans out there by which the Congress could once again begin creating this country's currency. Some of them are well thought out, some less so. But any of them are better than what we have now. We are owned outright by banks, every one of us. Our property is not ours, it's theirs to take on a whim. Our future and that of our children is hostage to the fancy of those that control the power of money. In a free society that power is given to elected officials. So what kind of society do WE have? 

Welcome to the plantation.