In summary, the nation’s opportunity for long term sustainability was squandered for short-term gain and the citizenry have been left chained to a debt that will not be paid off in their lifetime, if ever. Through a combination of incompetence, ignorance (usually willful), delusion, short-term thinking, group-think, cute-hoorism, and plain old-fashioned thievery, the potential that briefly showed at the end of the nineties has been lost for another generation.

With a little bit of restraint, an appreciation of the public interest and the common good, and a few lessons in civics (and basic economics) it could have been so different.