U.S. national debt nears $40 trillion as Congress fails to act

The United States is facing a fiscal crisis as its national debt approaches $40 trillion, a figure that has grown at an accelerating pace over the past two and a half decades. The author, a former mergers-and-acquisitions banker, draws a parallel between the situation in Homer's Odyssey, where suitors consume the estate of Odysseus while he is away, and the current state of American governance. In the story, the suitors lounge in the hall, demanding that Odysseus's wife choose one of them, and each day they consume a little more of an estate none of them will ever own. The author argues that this is not a Bronze Age problem but a modern one: the national debt represents a claim on people who cannot yet vote, a form of taxation without representation. The debt is the result of misaligned incentives in Congress, where lobbyists hold more sway than informed citizens. The author points out that the Founding Fathers, who designed a government with three branches, would be stunned to see how much legislative work now happens in the executive and judicial branches, and how comfortable Congress has become with this arrangement. The trend of increasing debt is alarming: three data points, each a tenth of the distance of the last, show that the debt has grown from $4 trillion in 1980 to $10 trillion in 2000, to $20 trillion in 2010, and now to $40 trillion in 2026. The author suggests that the solution lies in restoring wisdom to democracy by giving citizens stronger incentives to become informed and engaged. He proposes using technology to create a more direct democracy, where citizens' voices truly matter. The author concludes that if we harness our technologies, we could make our ancestors proud and ensure that lovers of wisdom, not special interests, make decisions for society.