I heard an interesting theory, that if the US did two things at the same time, that it could dig itself out of the hole quickly.
The first is an iron clad constitutional balanced budget amendment, with no wiggle room for “off budget” items, and the ability to spend for emergencies only during a mutually declared state of war with a foreign nation, ending as soon as either nation ends the declared war, even if fighting continues.
The second, which is announced as soon as the amendment becomes part of the constitution, is to renounce all foreign holdings on our national debt. Only the debt held by US citizens would then exist.
Now, ordinarily, if the US renounced part of its national debt, it would destroy the equivalent of our “credit rating”. However, any future debt would have to be backed with 100% collateral, maintained in escrow outside of the jurisdiction of the US.
While this would mean that foreigners would no longer invest deeply in US treasury bonds, used to finance a debt we no longer would have or wanted; we could still develop debt for the purposes of foreign trade. It just means that we would have to pay cash in advance, instead of “We’ll owe you.” So no more “trade imbalance”, either.
Nationally, it would also mean no more pilfering of the Social Security trust fund. Once in the constitution, Congress could neither remove SS funds, nor make debts using those funds as collateral. This would mean a great big pot of money, instead of a box filled with useless IOUs.
No more laws for future generations to pay for, either. If a law wasn’t fully funded, then the parts of it not fully funded would not get done. Hey, if they aren’t willing to pay for it, why did they pass it?
I’m sure there are lots of holes in the idea, but it sure is fun to contemplate.
“renounce all foreign holdings on our national debt”
That’s not an option when the same governments that hold those debt notes also have 70 trillion in greenbacks sitting in their central banks.
The greenbacks position as reserve currency of the planet means the US gets to call the shots in the global economic system, but it also means the planet has the US by the short and curlies in terms of the sheer amount of damage they can cause simply by putting a small percentage of their reserves back into play on international money markets.