Inflation has everything to do with it. We don't borrow money at a fixed rate with an infinite period. We were paying $50 billion in 1995, and $23 billion in 2019 even though the accumulated deficit was lower then.
Interest rates were more than quadruple today's in 1995. Do you think they will stay this low forever? Can you guarantee that? Chretien and Martin were slashing spending and paying down debt because our credit rating was going in the tank. We are a can we afford the payments today culture and have learned nothing from history.
I'll say it one more time. I'm not saying we should never borrow money, I'm saying we shouldn't do it with the intention of never paying it back. Which is what we are doing
now and what this debt to GDP con is all about.
There is a real disconnect here. On the one hand we are being told we can't be so wasteful and excess consumption is destroying our world and on the other hand, many of the same people are saying we can continue to borrow and not pay it back because infinite growth will allow us to make the payments. Non renewable resources are finite and we are already consuming renewable resources at a rate greater than the planet can replace them. It defies logic.