What would Jefferson think of our national debt?

I've often called the ongoing deficits and the total national debt a giant Ponzi scheme that amounts to generational theft.

The tab now stands at $12 trillion. That's $40,000 each from the 300 million Americans, according the handy U.S. National Debt Clock, and it is increasing $4 billion a day.

For a staggering eyeful go the US Debt Clock and scroll down to the bottom right corner for the unfunded liabilities and watch the numbers spin upward like the score on the wizard's pinball machine.

Turns out someone else thought the same. And his ideas and words are far superior to mine.

On Sept. 6, 1789, Thomas Jefferson wrote from Paris to James Madison, expressing concern about this very issue.

Here are some excerpts:

"I set out on this ground which I suppose to be self evident, 'that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living;' that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it. The portion occupied by an individual ceases to be his when himself ceases to be, and reverts to the society. If the society has formed no rules for the appropriation of its lands in severalty, it will be taken by the first occupants. These will generally be the wife and children of the decedent. If they have formed rules of appropriation, those rules may give it to the wife and children, or to some one of them, or to the legatee of the deceased. So they may give it to his creditor. But the child, the legatee or creditor takes it, not by any natural right, but by a law of the society of which they are members, and to which they are subject. Then no man can by natural right oblige the lands he occupied, or the persons who succeed him in that occupation, to the paiment of debts contracted by him. For if he could, he might during his own life, eat up the usufruct of the lands for several generations to come, and then the lands would belong to the dead, and not to the living, which would be reverse of our principle. ...

"Then no man can by natural right oblige the lands he occupied, or the persons who succeed him in that occupation, to the paiment of debts contracted by him. For if he could, he might during his own life, eat up the usufruct of the lands for several generations to come, and then the lands would belong to the dead, and not to the living, which would be reverse of our principle. What is true of every member of the society individually, is true of them all collectively, since the rights of the whole can be no more than the sum of the rights of individuals. ...

"No nation can make a declaration against the validity of long-contracted debts so disinterestedly as we, since we do not owe a shilling which may not be paid with ease principal and interest, within the time of our own lives. ..."

Wouldst we could say the same to our grandchildren.