You don't need to remind me of Volker, and what he did was successful. HOWEVER, our debt to income ratios are now wildly different, as is our manufacturing base. Unless we can crunch spending (which doesn't look likely, as DOGE didn't find that much yet) higher interest rates will push the amount of borrowing to cover refinancing short term borrowing. It's the ol' debt to death spiral.
Trump is trying to push our asset position with opening the mineral estate, yet creditors' demands to secure the debt will remain, and it is that same mineral estate which was long ago promised as debt security.
So I don't see this situation as entirely equivalent. The higher rates have taken off the top. We must face things as they are now, not as they were 45 years ago. We've got factories, mines, and chemical plants to develop, and that's going to take cash.
Higher rates don’t change the amount of Treasury debt.
It does make interest payments on newly issued bonds higher, whether those bonds finance an increase in the debt limit or are rolling over maturing bonds.
The big problem is the inability to reign in spending by Congress.
Nixon was the last President with the ability to refuse to spend money that Congress had authorized. The Watergate Congress passed a law stripping Presidents of that power.
And at the same time Nixon ended the last vestige of the gold standard, which while not an effective brake at least could serve as a warning to Congress that their unbalanced budget was devaluing the dollar.