We live in a country where the federal government collects more than $3 trillion in revenue per year. Trillion-dollar budget deficits can be managed by monetizing debt through the central bank, or by selling even larger piles of government bonds. The Pentagon, for example, doesn’t know what it did with $6 trillion — but nothing will come of it. Being a government agency in such an environment means never having to justify the agency’s existence. The public can be trusted to conclude it’s all in the name of “national security” or “public service.”
