For taxpayers, is our "national debt" really a burden that must be repaid?

Here's the thing, you are correct that the debt in theory never has to be paid off, but the real problem is the debt service. Last quarter I looked up the interest on the debt for the last fiscal year and found that we paid $415 billion. To tell you the truth, without the debt the world's financial markets would collapse. Government debt is necessary to run the world. But let's look on the flip side; China uses our debt as leverage to get away with bad acts. Russia threatened to dump our debt to cover up the events in Ukraine. Debt is fine but too much debt is a problem.

Looking at debt another way, $17 trillion creates a burden of $415 billion, but what does that mean? What is $415 billion dollars more than? It is 5 times the sales of Microsoft, it is double the sales of Toyota and 4 times the sales of IBM. $415 billion is more than the sales of every company in the world except 4; Walmart, Royal Dutch Shell, China National Petroleum Company and Exxon Mobil. The interest on the US Debt is more than the GDP of 150 countries. $415 billion is more than 5 times the budget for the Department of Education, 5 times the budget for the Department of Transportation, 5 times the budget for Food Stamps and more than the federal budget for Medicaid. Matter of fact the interest on the Federal Debt is more than any agency except Defense and Medicare.

What can $415 billion buy? It could buy Exxon Mobil with money left over. It could buy Microsoft and with the extra $100 billion left over it would buy laptops and high speed internet for a year for every student in the US. It could send 8,000,000 students to Harvard for a year complete with room and board and fees. It can pay for food stamps for everyone in the US, not just those in need. It could buy every homeless person in the US a $630k house. It could also pay for insurance for every uninsured person in the US for 2 years.

We are about to add more debt to the $17 trillion that gives us the $415 billion that we have to pay in interest. Currently the Fed has to buy $55 billion in Bonds to keep the interest payments low and the economy afloat. If interest rates go up 1 point then the interest will almost hit $600 billion. If the debt hits $20 trillion and we have average bond yields of 4.5% the interest on the debt will be about $900 billion or about ¼ of tax revenue. Funny thing about the $900 billion number, when we hit it in about 4 years it will be more than spending on any government agency. If we never ran a deficit in the past 5 years the interest on the debt would be about $240 billion. I keep hearing that we need to raise revenue or deficits don’t matter when it comes to government spending. This is the worst kind of lie. What I mean by that is, if we didn’t have to pay for the debt then we could help the poor more or improve infrastructure. Or maybe we can build that cool machine that let Jodie Foster go to the other galaxy in “Contact.”

Sense the goal is to transform us into a police state the debt per/se doesnt really matter.

If u remember Clinton, after campaigning against tax increases called for a the biggest increase in History as soon as takin office. His excuse? 4 trillion $ Nat debt.

Dems have been calling for more taxes using that very issue ever sense.

Sooner or later gov will use the Debt excuse to take everything u have, and march u into "work" camps. So, if that doesnt bother u, or your children, dont worry bout it.

Not really. We no longer have Real money anyway. To those buying the debt the trillions $ in interest payments continuing on and on for decades and centuries on all that counterfeit money they created out of whole cloth is good enough. They are happy to be your Masters and content with owning You and your grandchildren.

It cost them nothing and they get to enslave future generations.

Don't say that isn't so or I'll know you are one of Them.

OBJECTIVELY false.

"When an Chinese exporter buys a US bond, her money is" SPENT. Exactly three way CAN exist to "pay-off" bonds:

1) With more debt - which DELAYS AND ESCALATES one or both of the other options WHILE reducing available credit for capitalization. Each and every "bond issue" REDUCES YOUR ability to capitalize and thus shrinks YOUR economy - having the exact same net effect as TAXING YOU has.

2) Taxing you.

3) "Printing money," either literally or electronically etc. This "new money" has value ONLY by REDUCING the value of the money that already exists. In other words, its value comes OUT OF YOUR WALLET, making it just another form of TAXING YOU

That thinking works, right up until others realise that we are never going to pay off the owed debt. Then no-one will give more loans to the US government. And if our government leaders still have that same mind-set at that point, they'll start printing off money and so hello out-of-control inflation.

Sure.... The debt is not 'real'. Keep believeing that, you willfully self-blinded idiot.

What a moron! Who tells you libbies this crap? I'm sure because we have all the smart liberals here that we won't have the same rules as Greece, Spain, or Argentina. Maybe we can count in the EU for that!

your just buying into the propaganda. if you knew anything about money you would know all debts get settled at sometime and some way... watch Chapman of 321gold. he understands it.

The total debts are greater than the total assets which makes the US insolvent and more spending will just quicken the erosion of buying power.. someday the USD collapses and it will get pretty ugly.

NOPE !!! Makes for a good cause and something for foolish people to whine and blame tho - this time it's just Reps blaming Dems ... LOL !

Some Debt is fine. it is all in the matter, if you can repay it back after a peroid of time.

Check out Argentina, bruv! roflmao