No one is suggesting any such foolishness and your knee jerk reaction only shows you feel you are losing some points of argument. My statement was intended to counter some myths about federal finance that you appear to be subscribed to.

The federal government doesn't "print" money any longer except as needed for consumer demand. Transactions with the member banks of the Federal Reserve system are all digital at the macro level.

Taxation hasn't "paid for" federal spending since '34 when FDR ended the convertibility of dollars to gold. The accounting mechanisms were left mostly intact, but sans a gold reserve to defend the monopoly issuer of our currency is no longer dependent upon taxation or borrowing to "fund" spending.

This changed the definition of our "debt" to reflect the amount of currency left in the private sector after taxation since our nation's founding. It is the net payment made to the private sector for the resources and labor purchased by the government, not a mortgage like debt the people are responsible for.

A balanced budget (and worse, a surplus) effectively steals those resources and labor without compensation. Deficit spending is matched with bond issues to draw down excess reserves in the banking system and to encourage thrift, but bonds cannot "fund" federal spending because the spending must occur first to provide the currency in the system to enable the purchase.

"Paying down" the debt means removing currency from the private sector in excess of spending. That is hardly a recipe for success in the economy and contributes to private sector bank debt that "must" be repaid while offering no means to do so. This lends to the formation of bubbles and makes the economy more susceptible to the variations of the business cycle and defaults.