The pervasive dialogue ever circulating about US National Debt exists in part to prepare the public consciousness for the never-ending war against social services. Austerity measures serve the rentier class and the corporations by shifting value from the public sector into the pockets of the few. The common sense thus becomes that public debt is bad, and that private debt is acceptable. And so Americans welcome the loss of the public-service aspects of government, and a neutered central power remains only as a managerial engine for corporate profiteering