The Federal Reserve Bank cut interest rates by a quarter of a point on July 31, the first reduction in more than a decade. The 25-basis points reduction was seen as an effort to stimulate the economy and counteract the escalating tit-for-tat trade war with China that is seen as impeding global growth.

The Federal Reserve, the world’s most powerful central bank, is again bearing the burden of keeping the economy growing and minimizing financial instability. What’s more, they are pursuing pro-growth policies without any fiscal policy support from elected officials.

Just last month, President Trump reached a bipartisan two-year budget agreement with Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives and Republican leaders in the U.S. Senate that raises discretionary spending caps by $320 billion and suspends the debt ceiling until July 31, 2021. The legislation will add $1.7 trillion to projected debt. It is a really bad idea to assume the future will look after itself. The good news is that they got on well together to pass the legislation. If you believe that you can’t be helped.

This budget deal avoids the risk of another partial federal government shutdown and a potentially catastrophic default on the nation’s debt. The Republicans voting for it touted the increase in military spending while the Democrats talked up the additional domestic spending it includes. The federal debt has grown from about $19 trillion in January 2017 to more than $22 trillion now. Fear of debt and its potentially dangerous implications are nowhere to be found in 2019.

But it’s not just the ruling class in Washington that has become addicted to debt; the whole country is waist deep in it. Taken together, all segments of U.S. debt – federal, state, local, corporate, and household – are at 350 percent of the gross domestic product. American household debt continues to climb to record levels, reaching $13.54 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2018, $869 billion above 2008′s $12.68 trillion peak, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

The Federal Reserve also claims to be tweaking the benchmark federal funds rate because it is worried that inflation is running below its target of 2 percent. According to the Fed, prices rose just 1.6 percent in the year through June, not counting volatile food and fuel prices.

Inflation as defined and measured by the Fed may be running pretty low right now, but bear in mind that the typical family’s living costs may be nothing like the official stats. It is also fair to say that Americans want a bigger paycheck, not higher prices resulting from a 2 percent inflation target. On a daily basis they experience the Dickensian nightmare of the accumulated high cost of several decades of low wages.

Don’t forget that even modest inflation for a prolonged period can seriously erode purchasing power. For instance, inflation averaged 2.46 percent annually between 1990 and 2018. Sounds low, but you would need just about $2,000 today to buy what $1,000 would have bought in 1990. You don’t have to be a socialist or an economist to understand that despite the strong labor market, today’s wages provide about the same purchasing power as years ago – if you are lucky.

To compensate, households turn to debt. The average American now has about $38,000 in personal debt, excluding home mortgages. The average household carries about $137,000 in debt and the median household income is about $59,000. So when the cost of living rises faster than household income, more Americans use credit to cover basic needs like food, clothing, and medical expenses. When wage growth does not keep up with the cost of living, government promotes cheap credit to grease the economic wheel, especially in an on-demand society that values the immediate over the remote.

Put differently, U.S. economic policy has for decades been, to paraphrase the misquoted Marie Antoinette, “Let them eat credit.”