For the sake of this discussion, lets assume the national debt is $19T (we know they have over promised benefits far exceeding that total, so this is the immediate static number).
About 6.5T of that is owed to foreign countries. About 8T is owed to the “trust funds”-the cash was stolen and replaced with IOUs carrying a 2% forever coupon I believe. The rest is with the FED and private individuals and corporations at the prevailing coupon rate.
To me first order of business is put the trust funds on a cash basis, remove the coupon “cost” and abolish the “lock box” mentality. Debt goes down immediately to 11-12T plus the yearly paper exercise of paying interest out of the budget drops approximately 150B. If nothing else the “budget” then is actually representative of the true cash cost of running the federal beast.
After that, freeze all spending i.e. no increase for “inflation”. Do a budget with a guaranteed $100B of money to retire the foreign held debt. Of course it would take approximately 60 years to pay that portion off at this rate but if the interest market ever goes back to a normal level of 4-6%, we will get vaporized as the biggest item in the budget will be debt service. Hopefully the “normal” rates are not reached in 60 years.
Whole hell of a lot easier is to terminate the illegal, unconstitutional Ponzi schemee, programs, acts, EOs, regs, etc. etc. etc....aside from a French’y Revolution, that is.
Aside from the obvious (above), govt has NO notion of a ‘lock box’ nor ‘fund’. Govt that cannot balance a check-book is even competent enough to invest MY (insert fund here) $$ wisely? Let alone with ANY positive rate of return (that doesn’t cook the books, or borrow from one account to add to another, or..)
For the contiued sake of this discussion (/s), you presume that govt will WILLFULLY stop taxing/borrowing and spending...for ~60yrs. Whoa, boy.
IMO, cut, cut and cut. ‘Investors’ took a crap shoot...and lost. Credit rating goes in the tank for a bit, which should mean govt has nobody to back-up their failed policies again and people bite the bullet (pardon the pun) by being self-sufficient again. Charity returns to those that FREELY give. Family/communities (I hope) take care of one another.
It’s the ONLY way to restore the liberty and freedom We had, let alone the Republic.
Just my $.02