To be clear, my question is along the lines of the fantasical idea of having politicians that really wanted to do best for the country and not line their pockets with millions of dollars.
Please don’t give our idiot leaders any ideas!
We’ll be lucky if the USD doesn’t collapse.
The value of the dollar is dropping like a rock now anyway. You don’t have to do a thing to lower its purchasing power. mr Biden is taking care of that in spades
Raise tariffs to pay off the debt. It is what Alexander Hamilton did to put the new nation on the road to fiscal responsibility. High tariffs funded the government completely and allowed manufacturing to develop in the new nation.
If you purposefully reduce the value of the dollar, people might think it will drop further. If everybody sells it, the value goes to zero. You can then pay the entire debt.
Drop it to what? Its at zero now. Why do you think most of the federal agency buildings in DC are shutdown and the place is a ghost town? There is no money.
First wrap your mind around how big a number 28 trillion is. Not only is it a hole too deep to dig out of, it’s unfair to say the least that everyone should tighten their belts because the country was mismanaged for decades by a relative few who completely sold us out. Screw it. Let it implode. This country will never be ‘fixed’ through the conventional channels. It needs a societal upheaval like you read in history books but are glad you weren’t there.
Good Lord. Please don’t give them any ideas! Aside from destroying the USD as a reserve currency, it would f*** us all in the ***. We’re already suffering inflation...and you want to increase it?
No. No need, no point, no interest in paying off this debt.
Bring on NESARA/GESARA. Bring on QFS.
Taking down the FED-based, IRS-aided Bankster Cabal will remove any need or desire to pay a single plug nickle of debt.
Switching to a precious-metals-backed new financial system will have some hiccups in the transition, but bring us back to sovereignty and freedom in the long run.
National Debt is paid off by:
Paying it
Default
War (and default)
Inflation
A lamp post decorating party coast-to-coast would be a more effective approach to rein in runaway spending.
The status of the US dollar as a reserve currency would be completely destroyed, and the dollar would then totally collapse and the inflation would make the Weimar episode look like a pleasant afternoon.
It has already been done. The problem is all the other fiat currencies aren’t worth crap either.
I think it is like trying to recover your virginity.
Perhaps one could default on bonds held by the Chinese. but you could only do it once and it would likely lead to war.
Better wild idea: Renege on all treasury debt to foreign holders.
Just say, “You know what? We’ll never be able to repay you. Here’s two cents on the dollar. Take it or leave it.
Interesting question. I’ll wait to see what the answers are.
Several countries have done this in the past, the UK for instance had to devalue the pound a couple of times.
The problem with the idea is that the USA is too big. Most debt in the world is demarcated in dollars. If a Turkish construction company has borrowed from an Italian bank, that debt is in dollars.
As such if the the US were to suddenly halve the value of the dollar, every lender in the world would be celebrating.
The problem is every bank would go bankrupt as half their loans just went bad, leading to a general collapse of the global economy.
The other problem is the only debtor that wouldn’t benefit much is the USA. Only about a third of our debt is held offshore, so we would have shaved a portion of it off, but not enough to make a difference.
The value of the dollar IS dropping and it ain’t temporary. The pols think they can shrink the Debt by paying it back in cheaper dollars. That is a perenniel solution of kings and Congressmen. Then the cost of new debt or debt rollover begins to rise rapidly i.e. rising interest rates on the Debt. I could work if the inflation is accompanied by cutting spending to below revenue. Politicians are incapable of conceiving that. Suggest it to them and they only hear static. It makes no sense to them.
Could we? Sure.
But currency manipulation is frowned upon amongst the rest of the world’s economies. We would lose our reserve currency status and that would would hurt us a ot.