what is the answer? how do we hold on to the money we have worked for?
The US is bankrupt. It cannot repay its debts. When that becomes clear, and the public moves from denial to anger, they will seek any justification or excuse to disavow the debt. Such will not be hard to find:
Most Federal spending since the 1930s has been Unconstitutional. Progressive (non-uniform) tax rates are Unconstitutional. Fiat money is Unconstitutional—the Constitution forbids anything other than gold and silver coins being used as “Tender in Payment of Debt.”
So the US could simply revert to the Gold standard, issue a new gold-backed currency, repay its bond holders using the old currency (which the government disavowed as redeemable for gold or anything else back in 1972,) and inform any who object to that it’s their own fault for lending money to an illegitimate government borrowing and spending in violation of its own Constitution, using a currency prohibited as being used as legal tender by that same Constitution.
It won’t be long before this end-game becomes obvious to everyone. It’s the only way out. And it doesn’t even matter whether the rationale for disavowing the debt is valid. People believe what they want and need to believe, and will seize on whatever rationalizations they can find to justify what they want to do. When that happens, the bond market will stop lending any funds whatsoever to the US government, and progressive socialism will die.
In my opinion, the flat tax is the answer