"Then I say, the earth belongs to each of these generations during its course, fully and in its own right. The second generation receives it clear of the debts and incumbrances of the first, the third of the second, and so on. For if the first could charge it with a debt, then the earth would belong to the dead and not to the living generation. Then, no generation can contract debts greater than may be paid during the course of its own existence."
 
Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1789.
http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1340.htm

[A]void... the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertion in time of peace to discharge the debts, which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear.

President George Washington, Farewell Speech,
September 19, 1796.

[T]he sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection . . . . His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant.   

John Stuart Mill,  “On Liberty”, 1869.

"No large country has lived so far above its means for so long. The federal government is piling up debt, which is inflationary. [The U.S is] also spending 7 percent more on goods and services than what we are producing. Americans are living beyond their means, and they're going to get caught up in a crunch."
                   
Paul Volcker, Federal Reserve Chairman, 1979-1987,
March 2007, AARP Magazine.