"To Contract New Debt is Not The Way to Pay Old Ones"

Much of what President Washington said should be repeated and repeated and taught in our schools. They are very relevant today as government oversteps its boundaries by taking us as a country into such debt that it boggles the mind. Mr Obama has much to answer for concerning the damage he has done to our beloved nation in the brief span of one year. But we bear a heavier guilt - we the people let it happen.

Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains taken to bring it to light.

GEORGE WASHINGTON, letter to Charles M. Thruston, Aug. 10, 1794

As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is, to use it as sparingly as possible; avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it; avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertions in time of peace to discharge the debts, which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burthen, which we ourselves ought to bear.

GEORGE WASHINGTON, Farewell Address, Sep. 17, 1796

However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.
GEORGE WASHINGTON, Farewell Address, Sep. 17, 1796

To contract new debts is not the way to pay old ones.

GEORGE WASHINGTON, letter to James Welch, Apr. 7, 1799

There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well prepared to meet an enemy.

GEORGE WASHINGTON, letter to Elbridge Gerry, Jan. 29, 1780