[bitchypat]

I guess it depends on how you define broke. Is our debt greater than 100% GDP? Yes is it. Is there any sort of plan to repay that debt in a lifetime? No, not really. A lot of people would consider that broke.

Any time there is a budget deficit, there is borrowing. The borrowing is done against future earnings by future taxpayers. Now it seems to me that if money is borrowed and not paid entirely back within a generation, then those who borrowed have essentially stolen wealth from their children and grandchildren.

[dragonwriter]

> Is our debt greater than 100% GDP? Yes is it.

That's (if the unit of analysis is "us", as in the country, rather than the government itself) arguably loosely analogous to one piece of one's personal debt exceeding 100% of annual income, and not at all the definition of being broke.

> Is there any sort of plan to repay that debt in a lifetime? No, not really.

That's having long-term structural debt, which, again, is nothing like being broke.

> A lot of people would consider that broke.

I don't really think that's true. The government is neither unable to pay its current obligations (it occasionally approaches choosing not to do so, but is nowhere close to being unable to do so).

[thesumofall]

But what if the money borrowed was invested in such a way that it will create returns that benefit the next generation? Education and infrastructure would be obvious examples. I'm not saying that this is what happened but borrowing in itself doesn't necessarily inflict any harm on future generations.

[SamReidHughes]

Why would being broke have anything to do with the movement of celestial objects?

[paulddraper]

If someone makes 100k and has a 110k mortgage, they are broke?