Comment by BizarroLand

The US debt is, for the most part, a symbol of how large our economy is instead of a representation of how deliriously in debt we are in.

It explicitly excludes the values of the assets that we hold in security of the debt, and is frequently trotted out to remind the little people how terribly large all of the problems in the world are and how hopeless it would be for any of us to try to solve them.

But!

No where in the world is the adage about, "If you owe the bank $100,000 you have a problem, but if you owe the bank $100,000,000 the bank has a problem" more evident than in the US National debt.

America could pay off this debt at any time, but doing so would cause our economy to massively deflate and cause a lot of harm and unhappiness for people all over the world, including Americans.

Not telling us these things gives America a way to inflict fear and control on its populace with no measurable downsides.