system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: How does the United States run on a deficit, and what does that ACTUALLY mean for the future?

We've only NOT run a deficit for four years of the past forty. As a member of the younger generation I'm trying to learn what it actually means for a country and it's posterity to run a deficit year after year.
gpt
Running a deficit basically means that you end the year owing more than you did at the start of the year.

Is that a bad thing? Well, maybe... but not necessarily.

You see, unlike in personal finance, when you're talking about national finances (or business finances, which are very similar), having some debt is usually a *good* thing, because it means you can spend money in order to make more money.

So if the country borrows money, spends it on things like infrastructure and job creation, and ends up with more of the population in work, earning more money, and paying more tax, then this extra tax ought to be enough to pay the extra interest on the bigger amount of debt. That's a good thing - it means the country's finances are growing. As the country's finances grow, so its ability to repay debt grows, and it would be wrong not to take advantage of that.

On the other hand, if the reason you're running at a deficit is because no one is in work so you're not collecting much tax, but you're having to borrow money to pay the salaries of civil servants, then that's bad.