This is correct. The problem is that so many people, including top decision-makers within society, are too short-sighted to care about this notion of deficit. "Someone else" will clean it up. Externalized costs and myriad variations of deficit spending (widespread layoffs despite the long-term costs of an underemployed nation; education cuts; environmental damage; ramping up social inequality on both the national and world scale, setting us up for violent revolution and national dissolution) are being tapped for short-term profit even when it's completely unnecessary. That a sizable portion of people are going to disregard their health, working insane hours and using substances of dubious long-term safety, isn't surprising in the least.