BOSTON

IT’S OFTEN SAID that in a democracy, we get the government we deserve. But when it comes to debt, we don’t deserve the treatment we’re getting from government.

Massachusetts and the nation are slipping into recession. Part of that has to do with the cyclical nature of the economy, but it’s exacerbated by the fact that we’re in debt up to our ears.

Massachusetts faces staggering liabilities. When you add up the debt that’s on the commonwealth’s books, those of various quasi-public authorities, such as the MBTA and the Massachusetts Turnpike, our unfunded public-employee-pension liabilities and huge infrastructure-maintenance backlogs, the total liability comes out to more than $12,550 for every man, woman and child in the Bay State.

And that doesn’t even count the liabilities of some of the quasi-public authorities and all 351 of the commonwealth’s cities and towns.

According to the Tax Foundation, a nonprofit fiscal-policy watchdog, taxes consume a little more than a third of what Americans earn. Servicing their debts, such as mortgages, eats up just over another third.

For years, Massachusetts has capped its annual borrowing at $1.25 billion. It’s not unreasonable to bump that number up some, given the impact of inflation over that time. But a Patrick administration proposal to hike the debt cap to $2 billion annually by 2012 is more than we can afford.

By virtually any measure — such as per-capita debt and debt as a percentage of personal income — the commonwealth is deeper in hock than almost any other state. Debt service is one of the largest line items in our annual budget and one of the drivers of a structural deficit that has topped $1 billion in each of the last two years.

Anyone who dismisses the impact of debt run amok need only look at the MBTA, which pays as much in debt service each year as it collects in fares.

The administration plan includes provisions designed to prevent the commonwealth from falling into a similar quagmire of liability, such as a cap on debt service as a percentage of state revenue. But the limitation can be easily avoided by simply extending debt out over a longer term. It would reduce annual payments but put our children even deeper in the hole.

The plan assumes state revenue will grow 3 percent annually. But our expenditures are growing much faster. Over the last five years, the commonwealth’s pension costs have grown at an annual rate of more than 13 percent, and debt service — even without the proposed raising of the debt cap — has grown an average of 11 percent a year. Looking back 10 years, annual Medicaid growth has been more than 8 percent.

Basic laws of arithmetic apply even to public borrowing. The administration has made a number of multibillion-dollar proposals that would only increase the rate of growth in capital expenditures. They include transportation, higher education and information-technology bond bills, Governor Patrick’s $1 billion life-science initiative, and a $1.4-billion commuter rail line connecting Boston with New Bedford and Fall River. Some are worthwhile proposals, but it’s unclear how we would pay for them.

The governor also plans to increase the term on some state borrowing from 20 to 30 years. It’s not a bad idea, as long as the longer-term bonds are used to finance assets whose useful life matches the term of the bond. Today, precious capital dollars are used to finance such short-lived assets as computers and police cars. Some are even used to make payroll.

Anyone who thinks that interest payments don’t add up should take note that credit-card purchases can end up costing more than twice as much as buying with cash. Given the staggering debt that Massachusetts already faces and the difficult economic times, we should be very careful about taking steps that would put us even deeper in the hole.

Charles D. Chieppo, an occasional contributor, is a senior fellow and Steve Poftak is director of research at Pioneer Institute, a Massachusetts public-policy think tank.