Quotes about debt
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Dennis Kucinich photo
Alan Charles Kors photo
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay photo

“The fact that we have been forgiven our debts does not mean that our president has to use the donkey as a means of travel. Does this also mean we can't buy clothes and therefore walk naked?”

Basil Mramba (1940) Tanzanian politician

Quoted in "Tanzania defends presidential jet plans," http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2146298.stm BBC News (2002-07-23). Mramba was defending the purchase of a Presidential Jet while he was the Minister of Finance.

Warren Buffett photo

“Management's objective is to achieve a return on capital over the long term which averages somewhat higher than that of American industry generally — while utilizing sound accounting and debt policies.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

29 March 1974
Letters to Shareholders (1957 - 2012)

Daniel Webster photo

“The gentleman has not seen how to reply to this, otherwise than by supposing me to have advanced the doctrine that a national debt is a national blessing.”

Daniel Webster (1782–1852) Leading American senator and statesman. January 18, 1782 – October 24, 1852. Served as the Secretary of Sta…

Second Reply to Hayne (1830)

Henrik Ibsen photo

“There can be no freedom or beauty about a home life that depends on borrowing and debt.”

Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906) Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet

Torvald Helmer, Act I
A Doll's House (1879)

Pat Paulsen photo

“I ask you, will I solve our civil rights problems? Will I unite this country and bring it forward? Will I obliterate the national debt? [long pause] Sure, why not? Thank you.”

Pat Paulsen (1927–1997) United States Marine

Unidentified press conference, 1968
Featured in Pat Paulsen for President (1968), part 2 of 6 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbP0ufyax5A&feature=relmfu, 01:54 ff (10:54 ff in full program)

Nouriel Roubini photo
Francis Escudero photo
Pat Condell photo
Mitt Romney photo

“I actually think it will be interesting to listen to the President tonight. What I'd like him to do is report on his promises but there are forgotten promises and forgotten people. Over the last four years, the President has said that he was going to create jobs for the American people and that hasn't happened. He said he would cut the deficit in half and that hasn't happened. He said that incomes would rise and instead incomes have gone down. And I think this is a time not for him not to start restating new promises but to report on the promises he made. I think he wants a promises reset. We want a report on the promises he made. And that means let's hear some numbers. Let's hear 16. Sixteen trillion dollars of debt. This is very different than the promise he made. Let's hear the number 47. 47 million people in this country on food stamps. When he took office, 33 million people were on food stamps. Let's understand why it was he's been unsuccessful in helping alleviate poverty in this country. Why so many people have fallen from the middle class into poverty under this president. Let's have him explain to the American people the 50% number. Why 50% of college graduates can't find work or work that is consistent with their college degree. The President needs to report tonight on his promises rather than try and reset a whole series of new promises that he also won't be able to keep.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

2012-09-06
http://mittromneycentral.com/2012/09/06/romney-on-obamas-speech-tonight-americans-want-a-report-on-presidents-promises/
Romney on Obama’s Speech Tonight: Americans Want A Report On President’s Promises
Mitt Romney Central
2012

John Ralston Saul photo
Alexander H. Stephens photo

“In point of material wealth and resources, we are greatly in advance of them. The taxable property of the Confederate States cannot be less than twenty-two hundred millions of dollars! This, I think I venture but little in saying, may be considered as five times more than the colonies possessed at the time they achieved their independence. Georgia, alone, possessed last year, according to the report of our comptroller-general, six hundred and seventy-two millions of taxable property. The debts of the seven confederate States sum up in the aggregate less than eighteen millions, while the existing debts of the other of the late United States sum up in the aggregate the enormous amount of one hundred and seventy-four millions of dollars. This is without taking into account the heavy city debts, corporation debts, and railroad debts, which press, and will continue to press, as a heavy incubus upon the resources of those States. These debts, added to others, make a sum total not much under five hundred millions of dollars. With such an area of territory as we have-with such an amount of population-with a climate and soil unsurpassed by any on the face of the earth-with such resources already at our command-with productions which control the commerce of the world-who can entertain any apprehensions as to our ability to succeed, whether others join us or not?”

Alexander H. Stephens (1812–1883) Vice President of the Confederate States (in office from 1861 to 1865)

The Cornerstone Speech (1861)

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“Solvency is maintained by means of a national debt, on the principle, "If you will not lend me the money, how can I pay you?"”

English Traits (1856), reprinted in The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Vol. 2 (Boston: Fields, Osgood, & Co., 1870), p. 206 ( full text at GoogleBooks http://books.google.com/books?id=21IRAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA206)

“Bitter for a free man is the bondage of debt.”
Alienum aes homini ingenuo acerba est servitus.

Publilio Siro Latin writer

Maxim 14
Sentences
Variant: "Debt is the slavery of the free."

Arthur Penrhyn Stanley photo
David Brin photo
Bob Dylan photo

“I paid the price of solitude but at least I'm out of debt.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Planet Waves (1974), Dirge

Glenn Beck photo

“You cannot take away freedom to protect it, you cannot destroy the free market to save it, and you cannot uphold freedom of speech by silencing those with whom you disagree. To take rights away to defend them or to spend your way out of debt defies common sense.”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

The Reshaping and Redefining of America
Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine
2009-06-16
Threshold Editions
1439168571
17
2000s, 2009

Robert G. Ingersoll photo
David Hume photo
Thomas Jefferson photo

“I, however, place economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to William Plumer (21 July 1816)
1810s

Sarah Palin photo

“Sarah Palin: That was another one of those WTF moments, when he so often repeated the "Sputnik moment" that he would aspire Americans to celebrate, and he needs to remember that, uh, what happened back then with the former Communist USSR and their victory in that, uh, er, race, to space. Yeah, they won but they also incurred so much debt at the time that it, it resulted in the inevitable collapse of the Soviet Union. So I listen to that "Sputnik moment", uh, talk over and over again and I think no, we don't need one of those.”

Sarah Palin (1964) American politician

On the Record w/Greta Van Susteren
Television
Fox News
2011-01-26
Palin Calls Obama's Sputnik Analogy A "WTF Moment"
2011-01-26
Media Matters
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201101260055
2011-01-27
Jed
Lewison
Palin completely misunderstands what "Sputnik Moment" means
2011-01-27
Daily Kos
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2011/1/27/939263/-Palin-completely-misunderstands-what-Sputnik-Moment-means
2011-01-27
referring to Barack Obama saying of investing in biomedical research, information technology, and clean energy, "This is our generation's Sputnik moment."
2014

Rutherford B. Hayes photo

“The debt was the most sacred obligation incurred during the war. It was by no means the largest in amount. We do not haggle with those who lent us money. We should not with those who gave health and blood and life. If doors are opened to fraud, contrive to close them. But don’t deny the obligation, or scold at its performance.”

Rutherford B. Hayes (1822–1893) American politician, 19th President of the United States (in office from 1877 to 1881)

About the Arrears of Pensions Act (1879) for disabled Union veterans, which Hayes cheerfully signed, which was roundly criticized as too expensive and too open to fraud by unscrupulous veterans fabricating service-related injuries.
Letter to William Henry Smith (19 December 1881)
Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1922 - 1926)

L. Randall Wray photo
Ron Paul photo
David Graeber photo

“What is a debt, anyway? A debt is just the perversion of a promise. It is a promise corrupted by both math and violence.”

David Graeber (1961) American anthropologist and anarchist

Source: Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011), Chapter Twelve, "1971–The Beginning…", p. 391

Linda McQuaig photo
Donald J. Trump photo
John Updike photo
Seneca the Younger photo

“A trifling debt makes a man your debtor; a large one makes him an enemy.”
Leve aes alienum debitorem facit, grave inimicum.

Seneca the Younger (-4–65 BC) Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist

Source: Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XIX: On worldliness and retirement, Line 11.

George W. Bush photo
Anatole France photo
Gore Vidal photo
George Herbert photo

“991. Speake not of my debts, unlesse you mean to pay them.”

George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest

Jacula Prudentum (1651)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe photo
Jorge Luis Borges photo
Andrew Johnson photo
Harry V. Jaffa photo
Thomas Jefferson photo
Ursula K. Le Guin photo

““The mission I am on overrides all personal debts and loyalties.”
“If so,” said the stranger with fierce certainty, “it is an immoral mission.””

Source: Hainish Cycle, The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), Chapter 8 “Another Way into Orgoreyn” (p. 104)

Hillary Clinton photo

“It's just not right that Donald Trump can ignore his debts, but students and families can't refinance theirs.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), 2016 Democratic National Convention (July 28, 2016)
Variant: It's just not right that Donald Trump can ignore his debts, but students and families can't refinance theirs.

Edward St. Aubyn photo
Ulysses S. Grant photo
Mohammed Hanif photo

“A debt-ridden farmer contemplating suicide in Maharashtra and a mother who abandons her children in Karachi because she can't feed them: this is what we have achieved in our mutual desire to teach each other a lesson.”

Mohammed Hanif (1964) Pakistani journalist

Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Sunday_TOI/Ten_myths_about_Pakistan/articleshow/3932145.cms (4 January 2009)

Yanis Varoufakis photo

“Europe in its infinite wisdom decided to deal with this bankruptcy by loading the largest loan in human history on the weakest of shoulders … What we’ve been having ever since is a kind of fiscal waterboarding that has turned this nation into a debt colony.”

Yanis Varoufakis (1961) Greek-Australian political economist and author, Greek finance minister

Source: Russell Hotten. " Yanis Varoufakis: In his own words http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-31111905" at bbc.co.uk, 3 February 2015; On the austerity terms of Greece's €240bn bailout

Oswald Mosley photo
Euclid Tsakalotos photo

“It is a very tough agreement, with many thorns, and as for the question of who will implement it, that depends on who the Greek people trust to negotiate debt restructuring.”

Euclid Tsakalotos (1960) Greek economist and politician

" Fiery all-night debate in Greek parliament before bailout vote http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2015/aug/14/greek-parliament-finance-minister-debate-bailout-vote-video" (14 August 2015)

Mary Baker Eddy photo

“The economic success of the Reagan Administration was largely dependent upon the pyramiding of massive debt and the siphoning of capital from the rest of the world.”

Robert Gilpin (1930–2018) Political scientist

Source: The Political Economy of International Relations (1987), Chapter Nine, transformation Of The Global Economy, p. 362

Garrison Keillor photo
Plutarch photo

“There is no debt with so much prejudice put off as that of justice.”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

Of those whom God is slow to punish
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

H. Rider Haggard photo
Will Cuppy photo

“I borrow to pay my honest debts and not to squander foolishly. What's more, I confine my borrowing to those who can well afford it. I don't go around sponging on widows and orphans unless they have plenty.”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

[Scribner's Magazine, 1937, CII, 6, 19-21, I'm Not the Budget Type, Will Cuppy, http://www.unz.org/Pub/Scribners-1937dec-00019, PDF] Retrieved on June 25, 2012.

William Penn photo
Bob McDonnell photo

“We are broke, have an unconscionable amount in credit card debt already, and this Inaugural is killing us!”

Bob McDonnell (1954) American attorney and politician

Maureen McDonnell, quoted on Daily News, "Former Virgina Gov. Bob McDonnell and wife indicted on corruption charges" http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/va-gov-bob-mcdonnell-wife-indicted-corruption-article-1.1586861, January 21, 2014.

Muhammad photo
Albrecht Thaer photo
Ashoka photo
Melvyn Bragg photo
Laisenia Qarase photo
Hillary Clinton photo

“I would suggest to my honourable Friend that the foreign investor is at least as discouraged by high national debt for that, as all example shows, is the surest precursor of high taxation.”

John James Cowperthwaite (1915–2006) British colonial administrator

March 24, 1966, page 213.
Official Report of Proceedings of the Hong Kong Legislative Council

Oliver Goldsmith photo
Pete Stark photo

“The more debt we owe, the wealthier we are.”

Pete Stark (1931–2020) American politician

From the interview which he gave to Jan Helfeld . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjbPZAMked0&feature=player_embedded

Herbert Hoover photo

“Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt.”

Herbert Hoover (1874–1964) 31st President of the United States of America

Address to the Nebraska Republican Conference, Lincoln, Nebraska (16 January 1936)

Thomas Jefferson photo

“The question therefore now comes forward, To what other objects shall these surpluses be appropriated, and the whole surplus of impost, after the entire discharge of the public debt, and during those intervals when the purposes of war shall not call for them? Shall we suppress the impost and give that advantage to foreign over domestic manufactures? On a few articles of more general and necessary use the suppression in due season will doubtless be right, but the great mass of the articles on which impost is paid are foreign luxuries, purchased by those only who are rich enough to afford themselves the use of them.
Their patriotism would certainly prefer its continuance and application to the great purposes of the public education, roads, rivers, canals, and such other objects of public improvement as it may be thought proper to add to the constitutional enumeration of Federal powers. By these operations new channels of communications will be opened between the States, the lines of separation will disappear, their interests will be identified, and their union cemented by new and indissoluble ties. Education is here placed among the articles of public care, not that it would be proposed to take its ordinary branches out of the hands of private enterprise, which manages so much better all the concerns to which it is equal, but a public institution can alone supply those sciences which though rarely called for are yet necessary to complete the circle, all the parts of which contribute to the improvement of the country and some of them to its preservation.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Thomas Jefferson's Sixth State of the Union Address (2 December 1806). Advising the origination of an annual fund to be spent through new constitutional powers (by new amendments) from projected surplus revenue.
1800s, Second Presidential Administration (1805-1809)

François Hollande photo

“In addition to relative indifference to the fate of the euro area, Britain is more protected because of speculation the central bank may intervene directly to finance the debt … Europe is not a cash box, let alone a cashpoint.”

François Hollande (1954) 24th President of the French Republic

As quoted in "New French leader fires a broadside at Britain: You only care about the City of London, says President Hollande" http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2141040/Francois-Hollande-French-president-says-Britain-cares-City.html (8 May 2012), Daily Mail.

Margaret Thatcher photo
Will Eisner photo
Nigel Farage photo

“Basically, Herman van Rompuy wants the European Union to become a debt union, which may be acceptable to some of the southern countries who are effectively bust. To the northern countries, it is not.”

Nigel Farage (1964) British politician and former commodity broker

Segment from an article on the UKIP website, 29 June 2012. Welcome to the D€bt Union http://www.ukip.org/content/latest-news/2703-welcome-to-the-deurobt-union
2012

Robert Francis Kennedy, Jr. photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Thomas Brooks photo

“Our sins are debts that none can pay but Christ. It is not our tears, but His blood; it is not our sighs, but His sufferings, that can testify for our sins. Christ must pay all, or we are prisoners forever.”

Thomas Brooks (1608–1680) English Puritan

Source: Quotes from secondary sources, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers, 1895, P. 81.

El Greco photo
Samuel Johnson photo

“Small debts are like small shot; they are rattling on every side, and can scarcely be escaped without a wound; great debts are like cannon, of loud noise but little danger.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

Letter http://books.google.com/books?id=yEA_AQAAMAAJ&q=%22small+debts+are+like+small+shot+they+are+rattling+on+every+side+and+can+scarcely+be+escaped+without+a+wound+great+debts+are+like+cannon+of+loud+noise+but+little+danger%22&pg=PA189#v=onepage to Joseph Simpson, circa 1759
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I

Debito Arudou photo
Edmund Burke photo
Bill Maher photo
Lois McMaster Bujold photo

“You don't pay back your parents. You can't. The debt you owe them gets collected by your children, who hand it down in turn.”

Vorkosigan Saga, A Civil Campaign (1999)
Context: You don't pay back your parents. You can't. The debt you owe them gets collected by your children, who hand it down in turn. It's a sort of entailment. Or if you don't have children of the body, it's left as a debt to your common humanity. Or to your God, if you possess or are possessed by one.

Ernesto Che Guevara photo

“Now is the time to throw off the yoke, to force renegotiation of oppressive foreign debts”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Afro-Asian Conference (1965)
Context: Now is the time to throw off the yoke, to force renegotiation of oppressive foreign debts, and to force the imperialists to abandon their bases of aggression.

Theodore Parker photo

“I am to do justice, and demand that of all, — a universal human debt, a universal human claim.”

Theodore Parker (1810–1860) abolitionist

Ten Sermons of Religion (1853), III : Of Justice and the Conscience https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ten_Sermons_of_Religion/Of_Justice_and_the_Conscience
Context: Justice is moral temperance in the world of men. It keeps just relations between men; one man, however little, must not be sacrificed to another, however great, to a majority, or to all men. It holds the balance betwixt nation and nation, for a nation is but a larger man; betwixt a man and his family, tribe, nation, race; between mankind and God. It is the universal regulator which coordinates man with man, each with all, — me with the ten hundred millions of men, so that my absolute rights and theirs do not interfere, nor our ultimate interests ever clash, nor my eternal welfare prove antagonistic to the blessedness of all or any one. I am to do justice, and demand that of all, — a universal human debt, a universal human claim.

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“We cannot overstate our debt to the Past, but the moment has the supreme claim.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1870s, Society and Solitude (1870), Quotation and Originality
Context: We cannot overstate our debt to the Past, but the moment has the supreme claim. The Past is for us; but the sole terms on which it can become ours are its subordination to the Present. Only an inventor knows how to borrow, and every man is or should be an inventor. We must not tamper with the organic motion of the soul.

Hillary Clinton photo

“I don't think top-down works in America. I think building the middle class, investing in the middle class, making college debt-free so more young people can get their education, helping people refinance their debt from college at a lower rate. Those are the kinds of things that will really boost the economy. Broad-based, inclusive growth is what we need in America, not more advantages for people at the very top.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), First presidential debate (September 26, 2016)
Context: We've looked at your [Trump's] tax proposals. I don't see changes in the corporate tax rates or the kinds of proposals you're referring to that would cause the repatriation, bringing back of money that's stranded overseas. I happen to support that. I happen to support that in a way that will actually work to our benefit. But when I look at what you have proposed, you have what is called now the Trump loophole, because it would so advantage you and the business you do.... Trumped-up trickle-down. Trickle-down did not work. It got us into the mess we were in, in 2008 and 2009. Slashing taxes on the wealthy hasn't worked. And a lot of really smart, wealthy people know that. And they are saying, hey, we need to do more to make the contributions we should be making to rebuild the middle class. I don't think top-down works in America. I think building the middle class, investing in the middle class, making college debt-free so more young people can get their education, helping people refinance their debt from college at a lower rate. Those are the kinds of things that will really boost the economy. Broad-based, inclusive growth is what we need in America, not more advantages for people at the very top.

Moinuddin Chishti photo

“The other miracle is that before his arrival the whole of Hindustan was submerged by unbelief and idol-worship. Every haughty man in Hind pronounced himself to be Almighty God and considered himself as the partner of God. All the people of India used to prostrate themselves before stones, idols, trees, animals, cows and cow-dung. Because of the darkness of unbelief over this land their hearts were locked and hardened.
“All India was ignorant of orders of religion and law. All were ignorant of Allah and His Prophet. None had seen the Ka‘ba. None had heard of the Greatness of Allah.
“Because of his coming, the, Sun of real believers, the helper of religion, Mu‘in al-din, the darkness of unbelief in this land was illumined by the light of Islam.
“Because of his Sword, instead of idols and temples in the land of unbelief now there are mosques, mihrab and mimbar. In the land where there were the sayings of the idol-worshippers, there is the sound of ‘Allahu Akbar’.
“The descendants of those who were converted to Islam in this land will live until the Day of Judgement; so too will those who bring others into the fold of Islam by the sword of Islam. Until the Day of Judgement these converts will be in the debt of Shaykh al-Islam Mu‘in al-din Hasan Sijza and these people will be drawing closer to Almighty Allah because of the auspicious devotion of Mu‘in al-din.”

Moinuddin Chishti (1142–1236) Sufi saint

About Shykh Mu‘in al-Din Chisti of Ajmer (Rajasthan) (d. AD 1236). Amir Khwurd: Siyaru’l-Auliya. Cited in P.M. Currie, The Shrine and Cult of Mu‘in al-Din Chishti of Ajmer, OUP, 1989, p. 30.

Paul Glover photo

“All national currencies are deep in debt-- indebted to nature-- because human economies extract from nature faster than we replenish.”

Paul Glover (1947) Community organizer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; American politician

http://www.paulglover.org/0711.html (The Ithacan, “The Destiny of Dollars”), 2007-11-01

Thomas Jefferson photo

“Funding I consider as limited, rightfully, to a redemption of the debt within the lives of a majority of the generation contracting it”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to John Taylor (28 May 1816) ME 15:18: The Writings of Thomas Jefferson "Memorial Edition" (20 Vols., 1903-04) edited by Andrew A. Lipscomb and Albert Ellery Bergh, Vol. 15, p. 18
1810s
Context: The system of banking we have both equally and ever reprobated. I contemplate it as a blot left in all our Constitutions, which, if not covered, will end in their destruction, which is already hit by the gamblers in corruption, and is sweeping away in its progress the fortunes and morals of our citizens. Funding I consider as limited, rightfully, to a redemption of the debt within the lives of a majority of the generation contracting it; every generation coming equally, by the laws of the Creator of the world, to the free possession of the earth he made for their subsistence, unincumbered by their predecessors, who, like them, were but tenants for life.

John D. Barrow photo
Herbert Hoover photo

“You convey too great a compliment when you say that I have earned the right to the presidential nomination. No man can establish such an obligation upon any part of the American people. My country owes me no debt. It gave me, as it gives every boy and girl, a chance. It gave me schooling, independence of action, opportunity for service and honor.”

Herbert Hoover (1874–1964) 31st President of the United States of America

Letter to Senator George H. Moses, chairman of the Republican national convention, upon learning of his nomination for president (14 June 1928); reported in The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover (1952), volume 2, p. 195.
Context: You convey too great a compliment when you say that I have earned the right to the presidential nomination. No man can establish such an obligation upon any part of the American people. My country owes me no debt. It gave me, as it gives every boy and girl, a chance. It gave me schooling, independence of action, opportunity for service and honor. In no other land could a boy from a country village, without inheritance or influential friends, look forward with unbounded hope. My whole life has taught me what America means. I am indebted to my country beyond any human power to repay.

John Kenneth Galbraith photo

“To pay off the debt was to destroy the money supply.”

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) American economist and diplomat

Source: Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975), Chapter VIII, The Great Compromise, p. 90
Context: In numerous years following the war the Federal government ran a heavy surplus. It could not pay off it's debt, retire its securities, because to do so meant there would be no bonds to back the national bank notes. To pay off the debt was to destroy the money supply.