[PragmaticPulp]

Government debt is literally sold. You can go buy it and invest in America, and you will receive your interest payments right on time like clockwork.

Likewise, when you pay your taxes, some of that goes to servicing that debt. You can look up how much of your federal tax bill went to paying debt holders.

The system only works as long as its trusted. If we just stopped paying interest on our debt, that trust would vanish overnight. As a result, the price of borrowing would skyrocket because who would invest in something that has demonstrated it doesn’t care about paying you back?

Likewise, if we do too silly monetary policy stuff, the trust will also disappear. Despite what the memes say, we can’t literally print infinite money and call it good. Fiscal policy isn’t a secret, it’s done in the open. The buyers of our debt know what they’re buying.