Actually, it does. Part of the budgetary expenses each year goes towards retiring bonds that become due that year. If those bonds are indeed retired and not renewed, then the overall debt goes down. Do this thirty years in a row, and there is no more debt.
‘If those bonds are indeed retired and not renewed, then the overall debt goes down.’
Right. We can’t keep up quantitative easing forever. There needs to be substance to the value of the dollar. That shores up our credit rating.
With better bonds, paying off the debt keeps getting easier.
Even if only a fraction of these assets are sold, it reverses the trend.
Only if the saved interest is not sucked into the maw of the Welfare State but it is actually the OTHER WAY AROUND - eliminating the DEBT can help reduce the deficit.
As I said eliminating the deficit has nothing to do with eliminating the Debt. You can go on forever with no deficit without impacting the debt in the slightest. It would only be reduced by paying it down not by having no deficit.