Nobody understands debt

First, families have to pay back their debt. Governments don’t — all they need to do is ensure that debt grows more slowly than their tax base. The debt from World War II was never repaid; it just became increasingly irrelevant as the U.S. economy grew, and with it the income subject to taxation.

Families got in debt trouble because they relied on their salaries (equivalent to government's tax base) increasing faster than their indebtedness. The problem was salary stagnation and layoffs broke this assumption. The government is at risk of the same thing happening: their tax base has not been increasing due to the economy stagnating.

I see people over their heads in debt who added to their debt when they were in their 20s and 30s when their salary was increasing as a matter of course because times were good and because they were young and learning new skills. Unfortunately, they continued increasing their debt at the same rate but now their salaries stopped increasing.

Second — and this is the point almost nobody seems to get — an over-borrowed family owes money to someone else; U.S. debt is, to a large extent, money we owe to ourselves.

I own a chunk of U.S. debt and I will NOT be happy if the U.S. government says "thank you for your donation."