LDS Church President, Gordon B. Hinckley, in a fireside devotional tribute to the Mormon Pioneers said:
“What a dismal station we have reached in this nation where we have borrowed and spent and failed to repay. At the close of 1994, every man, woman, and child in the United States owed as his or her part of the national debt $17,805.64. Think of it. It is a disgrace. It affects all of our monetary policies and all of our commerce. It burdens us with taxes from which there is little or no relief.” (Gordon B. Hinckley, "These Noble Pioneers," Fireside at BYU, Feb. 2, 1997.)