Do you know what else makes people poorer?  Having fixed expenses (housing) and roughly fixed income (salary) and growing expenses (food, clothing, energy, entertainment, etc).<p>As your income grows slower than inflation -- and for many people it does -- your variable expenses grow and you have to start giving things up.  You can&#x27;t give up housing and you can&#x27;t give up food so you have to buy cheaper food, cheaper clothing, etc.<p>Of course, infrastructure spending is totally dwarfed by wars&#x2F;military budget, so it&#x27;s kind of disingenuous to suggest that in order to spend on infrastructure, public education or public health that debt must be accumulated.  Cut the military budget by half and you can go hog wild, while still balancing the budget.