“The Keynesian intellectual “fog,” for that is what the whole discussion surely reflected, was motivated, in part, by the underlying purpose of securing widespread public and political acceptance of an activist fiscal policy regime. To convince the noneconomist public to abandon the classical precepts of fiscal prudence, the Keynesians felt that they needed to show that public debt did not matter because, after all, “we owe it to ourselves.”
— James M. Buchanan (via laliberty)