"There is not a more important and fundamental principle in legislation, than that the ways and means ought always to face the public engagements; that our appropriations should ever go hand in hand with our promises. To say that the United States should be answerable for twenty five millions of dollars without knowing whether the ways and means can be provided, and without knowing whether those who are to succeed us will think with us on the subject, would be rash and unjustifiable."
James Madison, Speech in Congress, 1790
"The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale."
Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Taylor, 1816
"No pecuniary consideration is more urgent, than the regular redemption and discharge of the public debt: on none can delay be more injurious, or an economy of time more valuable."
George Washington, Message to the House of Representatives, 1793
I'll bet those guys didn't even know there was such a word as "trillion." Politicians should wear uniforms with patches like NASCAR drivers. Then we could identify their sponsors (donors/bribers) and then we'd understand why they vote the way they do.
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