"The U.S. Doesn’t Have a Debt Problem. It Has a Crisis of Values"

Imara Jones (Colorlines.com):

One key reason that markets have showed continued confidence in U.S. debt is that unlike debt problems in, say, Greece and Portugal, U.S. deficits are largely the result of government policy rather than a fundamental structural problem with economy. The majority of U.S. debt since 1980 is the result of tax cuts and wars—first the Reagan tax reductions in the 1980s and his administration’s Cold War build up, then the Bush tax cuts and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The U.S. doesn’t have a debt problem; it has a values problem. MORE...