Balance this, my tea party friend

Here are a few questions for tea party types who say the federal government must be drawn down with taxes lowered and with all of this oppressive meddling in our ideally self-sufficient private lives ended.

These questions are for those who say the federal government must strictly balance its budget, matching actual current income to actual current outgo, in the very way, they say, that they balance their finances at home.

So here are the questions:

Do you live in a house on which you owe a mortgage? But, you say, the private homeowner is building equity with his debt. Yes, that’s true, although he is able to do so only with borrowed money. Anyway, government is building equity in human beings — isn’t it? — when it educates them, helps them stay healthy, seeks to create and subsidize jobs for them and protects them from criminal harm?

http://arkansasnews.com/2011/08/04/balance-this-my-tea-party-friend/