• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Venango County Tea Party Patriots

A non-partisan, non-profit, non-member, association dedicated to educating the public and promoting the principles of fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government and free market economics, and all other lawful activities.

  • Home
  • Resources
    • Resources – National
    • Resources – Pennsylvania
    • Resources – Venango County
    • Election Voter Registration Resources for Churches
    • Voter Resources
    • Resources – Other Organizations
  • Voter Registration Tools
  • Events
  • Alerts
  • Get Email Alerts
  • Contact Us

Jane Richey / July 16, 2012

Our Founding Fathers’ Economic Advice

George Washington told the House of Representatives in 1793: “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 the time more valuable.”

Washington also wrote in 1799 to James Welch, “To contract new debts is not the way to pay for old ones.”

John Adams wrote to Thomas Jefferson from Paris in 1780: “I think we shall do no great things in borrowing [money], unless that system or some other, calculated to bring things to some certain and steady standard, succeeds.”

Thomas Jefferson similarly admonished Samuel Kercheval in 1816, “To preserve [the] independence [of the people], we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.”

Thomas Jefferson also wrote to Fulwar Skipwith in 1787, “the maxim of buying nothing but what we had money in our pockets to pay for … [is] a maxim, which, of all others, lays the broadest foundation for happiness.”

Despite that the national debt nearly doubled under President James Madison, largely due to the war of 1812, the so-called “Father of the Constitution” said in remorse, “I regret, as much as any member, the unavoidable weight and duration of the burdens to be imposed; having never been a proselyte to the doctrine, that public debts are public benefits. I consider them, on the contrary, as evils which ought to be removed as fast as honor and justice will permit.” He described national debts as “moral obligations” as far back in Federalist Paper No. 43.

President James Monroe, who shrank the national debt by one-third, said, “The vast amount of vacant lands, the value of which daily augments, forms an additional resource of great extent and duration. These resources, besides accomplishing every other necessary purpose, put it completely in the power of the United States to discharge the national debt at an early period.”

John Quincy Adams, who also shrank the national debt by another one-third, said, “The plain state of the fact appears to me to be that the load of taxation to pay the interest on the national debt is greater than the nation can bear, and that the only possible remedy will be a composition with the public creditors, or an authoritative reduction of the debt in one form or another.”

Read more.

Share this:

  • Telegram
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Pocket
  • WhatsApp
  • Print
  • Email

Filed Under: Fiscal Responsibility, Politics Tagged With: Founding Fathers, moral obligations, national debt

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Recent Posts

  • 2 MARCHES To Consider
  • Update on Voter Fraud
  • Next Meeting – Sept. 24

Archives

Footer

Contact Us

Venango County Tea Party Patriots
155 Summit Drive
Franklin, PA 16323

Phone
814-671-7110

Email
jane@vctpp.org

Frequently Searched Terms

Agenda 21 Barack Obama Ben Bernanke budget climate change Congress Congressional Budget Office debt deficit Department of Energy Department of Health and Human Services economy environment Environmental Protection Agency EPA Federal Reserve fiscal cliff food stamps fracking gas prices global warming Government Accountability Office Governor Corbett green energy Internal Revenue Service IRS Keystone Pipeline marcellus shale Medicaid Medicare natural gas Obamacare President Obama recession regulations sequestration small businesses Social Security spending cuts stimulus taxes TEA Party unemployment United Nations voter ID

Facebook has been “fact-checking,” blocking and removing conservative posts. Follow us on Telegram.org for unedited access.

Click Here

Follow Us

Follow Us

Copyright © 2021 Venango County Tea Party Patriots · Web Design by OptimusMedia.com · Log in

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.