There’s been some buzz of late vis a vis the American national debt. Fiscal conservatives, including some brands of libertarians, are all against expanding it. Most people will admit to being less than ecstatic over enlarging the debt, even though most don’t really care that much. Immigration, judicial tyranny, the Mexican insurrection of LA (which the Mexican president tried to help out by threatening Mexico’s military intervention as reprisal if the US was too decisive), all these loom much larger over the American consciousness. Still, we should consider: does the debt matter? I submit to you my answer: not right now.

To underline why that’s a bit surprising coming from me, you have to understand that my formal education in the politics of economics is one layer of libertarianism and fiscal conservativism over another. Debt is slavery, as I’ve argued elsewhere, and the federal government being in debt is a Problem. Get me going on inflation or government spending and I’ll gladly occupy the next hour or so. Even so, I have come to the conclusion that the national debt is not relevant at the moment.

Why?

The national debt isn’t real. It exists, of course, but it is composed of an illusion. It is composed of an illusion because our currency is, strictly speaking, an illusion generated by a combination of custom and government power. Fiat money without a real pretense of backing is bad enough; fiat money that can be printed at the government’s discretion is worse. We’ll get to inflation later, though. What’s important here is that if the US government were willing to take the (significant) backlash, it could just print out a few trillion dollars and get rid of the debt.

Actually, the government wouldn’t do that, if the debt became a problem. It would do what it already does: borrow more money. If it really needed to, it’d do what most people call ‘fraud’ and borrow from a technical separate entity. The Federal Reserve holds more than a tenth of the US’s current debt; that’s part of the money-printing process. Borrowing from the Fed is the government borrowing from itself (the Fed is only technically non-governmental). The national debt can’t be called in meaningfully unless so much else has gone wrong that nobody will lend money, and even then it can be paid off by fiat, at the cost of a lot of inflation (currently about 5x Biden’s total inflation; 7 (some say) versus 36 trillion, numbers approximated).

Actually, debt is how the federal government funds itself, as part of the inflationary system. Here’s how it works: the government borrows X amount from somebody and then spends X amount of dollars. So far so good, but all that really needs to happen is for the government and the lender to agree that X amount have been lent and adjust the government’s books accordingly. What, you say, doesn’t the lender need to go down by that much? That’s down to the innovative banking system we have nowadays.

If I have 10 dollars, conventional wisdom is that I can lend out up to 10 dollars. Fractional reserve banking, however, says that I can lend out a lot more. A 10% required reserve means I can lend out 100 dollars, as then my 10 dollars will fulfil the reserve requirement. So I can lend out that 10 dollars ten times over. If I lend them to the government twice, to a friend once, and to various business opportunities another three times, I’m still 40% under potential. I’ve also printed 50 dollars out of thin air, money that goes on to circulate (the loan has to be paid back, of course, but that just means the bank has the money it lent out rather than the person it lent the money to. The new money still exists).

Fractional reserve banking is a way of multiplying money without production. Banks borrow your money to act as their reserve. Then they lend it out multiple times over, creating mirage money. So the government can print money by borrowing from the Federal Reserve as well as by directly coining new money (electronically or physically). It in fact does this regularly.

In sum, the federal government can’t be called on the debt, not in the way a normal debtor can be, because the federal government can just borrow more and print more whenever it feels the need, so long as it thinks it can weather the displeasure of the voters at the consequent economic difficulties.

The national debt is a problem, though. It’s a problem because it enables inflation, because it enables spending, because it fosters an attitude of indebtedness, because it denies the call of honesty, because it is a way of lying, because it is theft-via-inflation, because it does give leverage, even limited leverage, to a vast swathe of other agents- some of whom, like China (the largest governmental shareholder) or the various Western investment companies, are very nearly completely malicious in their interaction with the United States. Getting rid of the national debt would be a very, very good thing.

It’s just that we’ve got a lot more pressing problems. Some (like abortion) can be theoretically fixed (to a significant degree) instantly, but even those would take time in practice, even if we had the political will to put them to a sharp end. Fixing them legally without fixing the culture’s perspective, after all, just means a harsh blowback and a reversal to greater depravity than at the start (Matt. 12:45). Fixing the culture takes time.

We have the moral issues facing society. Abortion, homosexuality’s prevalence and acceptance, transsexuality’s bid for the same, no-fault divorce, and drug abuse. All of these have a legal-political element; all of them have a cultural element. None are quickly solved, but all are immensely deleterious to our lives. Of all the things listed here, these have the most indirect connection to the national debt.

We have economic problems. Among these we can count immigration (more on that later), taxation (ditto), tariffs, the debt-based economy (this could also be in the previous list), the welfare state (ditto), fractional reserve banking, and inflation. Those last two, I note, are connected to the national debt, but any serious attempt at fixing the national debt must make a good stride towards dealing with inflation and fractional reserve banking (as well as the Eurodollar) if it is to be worse than what it solves (fixing the national debt by causing hyperinflation is not a viable option, politically, practically, or morally). All the other issues except possibly immigration have some connection to the national debt which requires dealing with them first, at least in part. For the debt-based economy and welfare state we currently have, moreover, massive cultural and moral change is required, a changing of norms and a general shift towards desiring responsibility rather than promoting entitlement.

We have issues of national character. As some (quoted by Richard Barris on a recent show) have noted, the national debt doesn’t matter if America stops being America. Immigration (population replacement), the position of patriotism and populism in the American culture, the media, entertainment media (its morality and character), foreign governments owning a lot of American land (including China’s agricultural acquisitions), all of these are pressing problems. They must take precedence over the national debt because they deal with the character of America (as do the moral issues mentioned above), the thing which the national debt issue has importance because of. They’re also much of the reason the national debt is comparatively irrelevant in politics currently.

We have issues of totalitarianism and corporatism. Monsanto and similar companies are even now working to get immunity from broad swathes of suits over poisons like Round-Up. Tennessee had just such a bill nearly passed in 2025 and due to return in 2026, a bill pushed by big companies who apparently feel the need for immunity, a bill fought by many concerned citizens, a bill many legislators seemed unduly fond of. The government’s size on all levels is another massive concern; it’s so large that drastic cuts can cause economic struggles, meaning it has to be shut down part-by-part, gradually. Component to that size is its massively over-sized taxation regime (which doubles to gather information on citizens), its general overreach into all areas of life via regulation and other means, and the hideous judicial tyranny which has become remarkably apparent in Trump’s second term.

I could list more, and I could list in more detail.

Not all these problems need to be fixed entirely before dealing with the national debt, but all of them are more pressing and more influential than the national debt under the current system. Fixing some will help the national debt; fixing others will have an initially negative effect on the debt (to stop immigration, for instance, requires investment). All of them in the long run help with the national debt, whether culturally, by making the idea of that debt more abhorrent, or economically, by increasing the prosperity of the nation and thus making the prospect of repaying the debt easier to handle.

Finally, to finish out, I must address a final point: the national debt has an interest rate, a rate that can theoretically grow to the point that paying back the debt is impossible. It is my belief that fixing the national debt is only practicable by bringing America back to a steadier economic state, a state of burgeoning prosperity rather than the current (hopefully previous) trend of deindustrialization. The resultant improved income (which would peak, in my opinion at just under 10% tax rates) would allow paying off the national debt much more effectively than the trying to do so under the current water-treading situation. Further, the bonds the government generally uses have a fixed interest rate. Some effort can be made to reduce the interest rate on new debt used to pay off old debt.

Overall, while the national debt is an issue, it is not the primary issue facing America nor the first one. Instead, it is something to be dealt with after other issues have been faced, as part of the later steps to fixing issues we’re still barely willing to acknowledge. As a result, if the national debt must be somewhat worsened to deal with those more pressing issues, I have no great qualm, only a caution that it must be necessary, not merely expedient (and political necessity counts- if a better bill cannot be passed, then that better bill is not truly an option).

God bless.