When big government types confront those of us who understand that scarcity necessitates trade-offs, they usually say that government spending is different. Governments and especially ours, can simply borrow or print money to do all the good things it does. Anyone who doubts that must be an old fogey intent on being a buzzkill.

Cato’s Dan Mitchell is one of those old fogeys and here he jousts with one of those big government types, Matthew Yglesias, who says the the federal debt is no big deal.