Rising national debt was a core part of the impending apocalypse voices in the conservative press screeched about constantly in the Obama years. In a fairly representative episode of his Fox News show in 2010, Glenn Beck
warned that the national debt would lead to runaway inflation, $23 dollar bread in 2011, and, eventually, a “New World Order.” Out of this muck came the Tea Party and its babble about 1776 and thieving the future from our children along with a throng of new Republicans solemnly promising to get the nation’s fiscal house in order.