What did George Washington say about public debt?

The subject of public debt was one I considered among the most serious obligations a free people could inherit — or inflict upon those who come after them. In my Farewell Address, I stated the matter plainly. As I wrote there, “avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertion in time of peace to discharge the debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear”. That last phrase is the heart of it. To borrow and leave the payment to our children is a species of injustice, however convenient it may appear in the moment. At the same time, I was no enemy of all expenditure — I acknowledged in that same address that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it. Prudence, not mere parsimony, was my counsel. I also recognized the uncomfortable arithmetic that follows: to pay debts there must be revenue, to have revenue there must be taxes, and no tax is ever pleasant. I urged my fellow citizens toward candor on this point. In my Circular to State Governments, I pressed the same theme with moral force, arguing that “honesty will be found on every experiment, to be the best and only true policy”. Public credit, honestly maintained and carefully preserved, was in my judgment a foundation of national strength — not to be squandered by any generation that values the republic it received.