[twelve40]

How is it possible to even begin to repay $31 trillion? What kind of budget surplus would help put a dent into interest on that amount? That number is bigger than the entire annual GDP, let alone budget, let alone any hypothetical budget surplus.

[eganist]

Eh, the last budget surplus we had was in 2001 (a hair over 100bln). And while it'll be impossible to sustain that without politicians carving out what they want out of it, the 90s were a period where we sustained or crept our total debt load down ever so slightly, at least before 9/11.