what exactly will happen if the US debt keeps going up?

The dollar becomes worthless we can't buy anything from other countries (like oil) and a new currency will be created.

It depends on how quickly it goes up and for how long.

Debt is not a problem if it is going up, but shrinking as a percentage of GDP. So if the debt increases at a slower pace than the overall economy and that continues for a decade or 2, then the 'problem' of the debt just shrinks away.

But ever since the Bush Tax cuts of 10 years ago (and 2 wars, and medicare expansion) the debt has been wildly outpacing growth - and then made worse by a recession (negative growth) and the added spending of stimulus and increased spending on the social safety net for all of the newly unemployed.

No plan eliminates the deficit anytime soon. But both democrat and republican plans shrink the deficit to a manageable effect on the debt within a few years. The democratic plan is more realistic as it includes both spending cuts and tax increases while preserving medicare and social security. The republican plan is spending cuts only and the only place to get those kinds of cuts is to dismantle medicare and social security.

Whatever it is it's got to be better than paying off the National Debt because according to Cons doing that would destroy the economy:

Feb 2001: "Under current policies, the federal government will collect $2.9 trillion more in tax overpayments than it will be able to use to pay down national debt held by the public.4 This money must be spent by the federal government, invested in the private sector, returned to taxpayers, or some combination of all three. Regrettably, many policymakers have advocated allowing the federal government to invest these excess balances in the private sector. This would be a formula for disaster, which would threaten the economy as well as the retirement security of all Americans.5"

even higher interest rates. value of our currency decreases. other countries such as china will own us even more. it's basically just a snowball affect of tragedy of a great nation fallen. it happens very slowly over time. it's not an overnight process that really hits home. it's like smoking. at first it feels great and you look cool then you start to lose breath, people think you smell, you get sicker more often and for longer until finally you have a tumor in your lung or worse. this is one of the reasons our current "president" is speeding up the process even more, given he has spent more than all other presidents with his one term! consider that most the money has been wasted on failed attempts at a stimulus plan and billions have ended up in the hands of the middle east such as afghanistan (who housed the worlds #1 terrorist for years right under everyones nose). it's amazing isn't it?

More money borrowed => Another downgrade => higher interests to pay

the more the debt is high, the more difficult is to borrow more money... and so higher interest to pay.

The more interest you pay EVERY YEAR for the past debt, the less money you have for internal expenses... that take you to borrow more money... until you ends like Greece or default like Argentina.

No. We will just borrow more money from China. They have deep pockets. We could give them Hawaii if things got really bad.

Zimbabwe is in crippling poverty with a STARVING population. It WAS "the bread-basket of Africa" and a BIG EXPORTER of agricultural products. Mugabe managed Zimbabwe's fiscal policy so as to devalue the currency so much that NO ONE could afford ANYTHING. A single square of toilet-paper would cost more than 100,000,000,000,000 Zimbabwean Dollars before he was through.

The entire Democrat population demands we follow the exact same fiscal policy as Zimbabwe.

Happy?

Well.

Credit rating gets down graded eventually the US can't borrow nothing and the people will suffer and 90% will be poor. Couple of years you will be able to buy America on EBAY for a fiver

Allowing Bush's tax cuts to expire completely will prevent that.

We win a toaster oven.