Reagan knew... why don't we?

Inflation is caused by one thing, and it has one answer. It's caused by government spending more than government takes in, and it will go away when government stops doing that, and not before.…

-Ronald Reaga, Nov. 10, 1977 - Speech at Hillsdale College

So what is so hard to understand, people? Why the heck is our government putting us in more and more debt? Why do they think that the solution to being stuck in a hole is to keep shoveling deeper and deeper? Why do I have to cut back and start spending less than what I make in order to survive, but the government doesn't?

*sigh*

From his same speech:

Sometimes I think that government fits that old-fashioned definition of a baby: An alimentary canal with an appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.