it makes servicing a debt easier because the amount owed doesn't inflate but that doesn't actually make it irrelevant to this metric because what we're looking at is new borrowing, not accumulated debt. if an apple cost a penny a hundred years ago and a dollar today, and the government borrowed to buy an apple a hundred years ago and then again to buy another apple today, it makes sense to compare apples to apples and the only way to do that is to adjust that penny to what it would be worth today, one dollar