'Egalitarianism + Inflation'

"The government has no source of revenue except the taxes paid by the producers. To free itself -- for a while -- from the limits set by reality, the government initiates a credit con game on a scale which a private manipulator could not dream of. It borrows money from you today, which will be repaid by money borrowed from you tomorrow, which will be paid by money borrowed from you day after tomorrow, and so on. This is known as 'deficit financing.' It is made possible by the fact that government cuts the connection between goods and money. It issues paper money which is a claim check on actually existing goods -- but that money is not backed by any goods, it is not backed by gold, it is backed by nothing. It is a promissory note issued to you in exchange for your goods, to be paid by you (in the form of taxes) out of your future production. 

    "Where does the money go? Anywhere and nowhere. First it goes to establish an altruistic excuse and window dressing for the rest: to establish a system of subsidised consumption -- a welfare class of men who consume without producing -- a growing dead end, imposed on a shrinking production. Then the money goes to subsidise any pressure group at the expense of any other -- to buy their votes -- to finance any project conceived by the whim of any bureaucrat or his friends -- to pay for the failure of that project, to start another, etc. The welfare recipients are not the worst part of the producers' burden. The worst part are the bureaucrats -- the government officials who are given the power to regulate production. They are not merely unproductive consumers: their jobs consist in making it harder and harder, and ultimately impossible, for producers to produce."

          ~ Ayn Rand, from her article 'Egalitarianism + Inflation'