There’s no doubt the United States needs to make dramatic spending cuts to prevent itself from spiraling—either downward into an eventual debt default or upward into hyperinflation. If you want a primer on why that is, I’d recommend listening to this one-hour, simple-to-understand synopsis of the country’s financial position, followed by this appearance by Jim Bianco on the Julia LaRoche podcast a couple of days ago.

Right now, the political climate consists of Republicans taking a chainsaw to anything they can get their hands on in government to cut spending, and Democrats protesting any and all cuts for any reason they can drum up. Hashing out individual issues worthy of cuts is not what this article is about, so we’ll save that discussion for another day.

This article is meant to point out the fatal hypocritical flaw that exists in Democrats’ reasoning as it relates to the country’s financials. Everybody understands the simple idea that if we run up too much debt, the country could, in essence, go bankrupt. But what’s really alarming now is the pace at which we are running up this debt. It’s why this chart of the national debt is going parabolically higher. The number $35 trillion is astonishing — but the rate with which we are moving higher is beyond breakneck…..

And what you’ll notice in the chart is that the gap between the lowest 50% of the nation and the top 10% continues to widen. In other words, this is a problem that is getting worse, accelerating and shows no signs of stopping today. On this trajectory, at some point, quality of life for the bottom 50% of the nation is going to get so poor that someone will make this same point on a platform that garners significant attention, and it’s going to click with more everyday people. Maybe at that point, both parties will come together and have a legitimate discussion about monetary policy.

But one thing is for sure: If a lot of center-left Democrats I know understood this point clearly, they might seriously reconsider what it is that their party claims to be fighting for in the first place. And if the concept takes hold and has time to sink in with the nation, it could wind up being yet another issue that Democrats lose a significant tranche of voters over—at a time when their party can least afford it.

Both parties are to blame for flawed monetary policy, but at least Republicans are now floating some sound money ideas and cuts that work toward balancing the budget. As for Democrats, they may say their interests are in increasing equity and equality for their voters, but the policies they put forth instead scream that they want the billionaires and the mega-rich to get significantly wealthier, while the bottom 50% of the nation’s quality of life continues to be brutalized.