The Budget Brigade occasionally registers its opposition to adding to the national debt on this blog. Not today. Investors accepted the zero percent rate in the government's auction Tuesday of $30 billion worth of short-term securities that mature in four weeks. Demand was so great even for no return that the government could have sold four times as much. In addition, for a brief moment, investors were willing to take a small loss for holding another ultra-safe security, the already-issued three-month Treasury bill. At 0% (for 30 days), the federal government would be daft to not borrow. The "flight to safety," as investor types are say, is making government borrowing cheap cheap cheap. And if inflation is greater than zero for that the duration of the loan, the government would actually make money by repaying the loan back with fewer real dollars than it borrowed! Image by Flickr user NCinDC used under a Creative Commons license.