Politics & Power Quote by Paul Gillmor

Gillmor’s line works because it turns an abstract ledger entry into a physical burden, a neat act of political ventriloquism: the state borrows, but you feel it in your spine. “To date” gives it the vibe of a running meter, as if the debt is ticking upward in real time while citizens stand still. The phrase “every American citizen” flattens differences in income, age, and tax liability on purpose; universality is the point. By making the number per-capita, he converts a national balance sheet into a household-scale problem, the kind of figure that can be repeated at a town hall without anyone needing to know what a Treasury bill is.

The subtext is moral as much as fiscal. “Riding on our backs” isn’t neutral accounting language; it implies freeloading, weight, and unfairness. Debt becomes less a tool of policy than a kind of governmental imposition, something done to the public rather than with the public’s consent. That framing quietly shifts blame away from specific choices (wars, tax cuts, entitlement design, recessions) and toward a general suspicion that Washington can’t help itself.

Context matters: Gillmor served through the early 2000s, when post-9/11 spending and tax-cut politics collided with renewed deficits. “Nearly $27,000” functions as a snapshot from that era’s debt debates, aimed at energizing fiscal conservatives and disciplining spenders. It’s a rhetorical move that makes urgency feel personal, even if the economics of who truly pays, when, and how are far messier than the metaphor admits.