Without borrowed money, our standard of living will plummet. Inevitably. A lot.

The average standard of living is falling already, even as we keep on borrowing in an effort to sustain it. Real wages haven't kept up with rising costs for years, and people feel hard-pressed to pay for really valuable things like college educations and health care.

We're told that nearly 40 percent of the federal budget is paid for with borrowed money obtained from the sale of Treasury Bonds, which increases the National Debt. And that debt is already uncomfortably high. But that borrowed money is also essential: It feeds into our economy and provides jobs. If the federal government stops borrowing, many jobs will dry up. Obviously, that would lower the average standard of living still more.

What else may happen if the average standard of living continues to fall? Actually, there are only a few ways that it can fall, none of them pleasant:

* Unemployment increases. Government jobs are perhaps most affected, because most people are unwilling or unable to keep on paying taxes sufficient to avoid layoffs of teachers, policemen and firemen. But jobs in the private sector disappear also, as the economy slows.

* Wages fall. Real wages fall as jobs disappear and workers are forced to accept lower paying employment. They may also have to pay a larger part of the cost of benefits like health care and insurance -- benefits formerly paid for largely by employers. And wage increases have not really kept up with the cost of living for a long time.

* Taxes increase. Taxes will have to increase if essential government services are to be maintained without borrowed money as the economy shrinks. Both Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton balanced the budget with tax revenues of about 12 percent of the gross domestic product, not counting Social Security taxes. The tax cuts initiated by George W. Bush dropped those revenues to about 8 percent of GDP, and the budget deficit skyrocketed into the wild blue yonder.

For years, starting with the Reagan presidency, it was claimed that reducing taxes would stimulate the economy and tax revenues would actually rise along with the GDP, lowering the federal deficit. Actually, the national debt roughly doubled on Reagan's watch, both in absolute dollars ($2 trillion to $4 trillion), and as a percent of the GDP (33 percent to 56 percent).

Economists universally agree now that this idea -- the central theme of Reaganomics -- was false.

* Inflation. Inflation is probably the most democratic way of dropping the average standard of living to a sustainable level, because it affects just about everyone, though not quite equally. As prices rise, people necessarily buy less expensive clothes, houses, cars and food. They send their kids to less expensive colleges. They postpone vacations or take camping trips instead of trips to Cancun.

Also, as prices rise, the real value of the nation's debt falls correspondingly.

These ways are all interdependent. Since our present standard of living depends significantly on borrowed money, the consequences of turning off that money will very likely include all of them. For example, if we really were to reduce government spending, that would translate into a big loss of government jobs and increased unemployment. The effects would ripple all through the private sector as well. Essential government services still have to be paid for, but from a shrunken tax-base. This would mean that tax rates of all kinds would inevitably go up as roads and bridges deteriorate, schools become dilapidated and understaffed, and police and firemen were spread thin, even as crime increases. Sure, some government services can probably be eliminated or made more efficient, but 40 percent is a lot of money -- and jobs -- to cut.

Unlike deficits, which can accumulate as debt, the money supply must be maintained more or less constant. As more money flows out of the country than comes in (due mostly to trade deficits and overseas military spending) the money supply dwindles and the economy slows even more. The Treasury, if constrained to stop borrowing money, can do nothing. The Federal Reserve, charged with maintaining the money supply, pumps cash back into the economy by buying up Treasury bonds on the open market, or simply creating it and injecting it into the economy. Either way fuels more inflation.

Sooner or later, pumping money into the economy means that the cost of everything goes up as the value of the dollar falls, and the average standard of living continues to fall as a result.

Eventually, we chug back to a standard of living more like that of our parents or grandparents. Today's necessities, like a smart-phone and car for everyone in the family, or vacations at the beach, or expensive private colleges a thousand miles from home, are replaced by a single phone for the whole family, one car and commuting to a local college, and by public transportation, if the buses still run.

And it won't be so bad. After all, a lot of us grew up that way.

Cropley is a retired chemical engineer who lives in Scott Depot.