If someone took the prinintg presses away from the Treasury we would be Bankrupt.
financially bankrupt - maybe !
morally bankrupt - certainly
That's real money. But what is especially galling is that US citizens, by purchasing Treasuries are, in effect, funding the very agents of their oppression!
If people would just stop buying Ts, and the Chinese ran low on money as people stopped buying their imported crap, the US gov't would have a real problem.
They'd either have to make budget cutbacks or, as you suggest, start printing money. Neither is effective, so the net effect is that the welfare state would collapse. That should be our end goal.