Politicians are not known for originality. In their public speech, most cling to the security of clichéd stock phrases the way toddlers hold fast to threadbare blankets. Thus Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney posed before an enormous national debt clock and intoned that the nation’s “debts get passed on to our kids.” Speaker of the House John Boehner addressed the opening session of the 113th Congress by professing: “In our hearts, we know it is wrong to pass on this debt to our kids and grandkids.” On the eve of President Obama’s second inauguration, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell warned that no problem America faces “is more urgent than the massive federal debt that is hanging over the heads of our children and grandchildren.” Late last month, House majority leader Eric Cantor celebrated a budget bill that will help “mak[e] sure we can begin to reduce the mountain of debt that is facing our children.”

But while “our children” are the favorite—and often the only—reason offered to whip debt now, this rhetorical standard seems stubbornly ineffective. Our debts are still here, still growing, with no solution in sight.