As the Senate takes up the “One Big Beautiful Bill” (Donald Trump’s name for it) passed by the House last week, there’s finally some discussion of the national debt. 

We have now arrived on the cusp of the 250th anniversary of American independence, and speaking as a veteran of the 1976 Bicentennial, the word that comes most readily to mind for the celebrations 50 years later is flaccid. 

In his 1804 poem "Jerusalem," romatic poet William Blake lamented the "dark Satanic Mills" of the Industrial Revolution blotting out the green pastures and natural beauty of England.