Language, the greatest human invention, helps us to understand the world, but also to misunderstand it. We use it to inform other people, but also to deceive them. It connotes more than it directly says, increasing the amount communicated but adding a subliminal element that we may not consciously appreciate even when it sways us.

Fiscal language, or the set of terms such as “taxes,” “spending,” and “budget deficits” that we use to categorize the government's dealings in cash, exemplifies the bad side much more than the good. Our fiscal language depends on form, yet seems to connote real substance. The result is confusion and deliberate manipulation that increasingly endanger our national economic welfare.