Why are we all so worried about the national debt?

It seems like a bad thing for our government to be in debt, doesn't it? Yeah, it certainly seems bad. But is it really?

Thinking rationally and economically, it's not a problem at all to be running up debts in the trillions. Think about it. What's wrong with having debt? Well, having to pay it back. What's special about the debt the United States government holds? They're never going to pay it back. And no one actually wants them to. Most of our debt (two-thirds) is owed to ourselves -- to Americans. For the rest, let's just say China. A lot of people are worried about China knocking on our door, saying 'pay-day.' But will they ever do this?

Of course not.

They're not dumb. They don't want their money back; they want a healthy economy. The U.S. government is the most reliable debtor in the world. It always pays interest on time.

If we were to try to pay our debt back for some inconceivable reason, let's think through what would happen. First of all, we'd have to cut government spending down to next to nothing and raise taxes. So our economy's in a major recession. We pay off our debts in a few years, but the world economy is in the toilet. Especially China's economy. While we were in that huge recession, we were no longer able to be their number one customer.

There's no way to pay off these debts without implementing a contractionary fiscal policy that would be detrimental to our own economy -- and to the economies of those we're in debt to.

So tell me again why China's going to make us pay up?

Oh, yeah. They're not.

So what's bad about debt that you never have to pay off?

Oh. I know. It wounds our precious American egos. If we're in debt to China, we're lesser than them. We're beneath them. We owe them something. And we can't be beneath China, for god's sake, we're America.

Well, well, well. Look, America, it's time to have an honest talk with ourselves. We're not number one anymore. No one's number one anymore. We're all just competing and cooperating, and there's no grand prize. And if we're going to let our egos influence us into cutting government spending that helps improve lives, even save lives... I'm all for making decisions emotionally, I'm an INFJ after all, but this is one area where we have to be rational.

There's no real problem with the United States government having a huge national debt. It's all in our heads.