alt Hacker NewsWarren Buffett, I believe, suggested passing a law making every sitting member of Congress ineligible for reelection whenever the federal deficit exceeds 3%
I suspect he suggested 3% because of the yearly GDP growth at the time, but I say make it 0%. Politicians shouldn't have the authority of indebting future generations.
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My state (Indiana) has a constitutional clause that prohibits borrowing except in the case of an unexpected shortfall in revenue or war. This means the state may not pass a deficit budget except in time of war. It had worked out well for the state.
That’s how you get rotting infrastructure and a bad education system.
That’s also indebting future generations, it just doesn’t show in the deficit.
Not to mention without state‘s debt a lot of people lose interest rates on their savings.
Then you might be incentivized to deliberately go into debt strategically, and remove the sitting opposition if you think you'll lose the next election.
Putting deficits below GDP growth can also be a roundabout way of slightly impoverishing future generations. A country that engages in countercyclical spending and growth via (less-than-GDP) deficits outperforms one that runs zero debt, and future generations end up wealthier.