We Can Immediately Pay off the Entire US Debt. Here’s How.

President Trump recently said the US should pay off its debt before establishing a sovereign wealth fund. The truth is, the US is effectively financially paralyzed until the unsustainable $36 trillion debt is paid off.

To illustrate the enormous size of the debt, it would equal approximately three football stadiums full of Elon Musks. Our nation is drowning in an ever-growing debt and interest spiral, and no one is doing anything about it!

There’s no way to cut spending or raise taxes enough to pay off the debt — $36 trillion is 7.3 times the total taxes the federal government takes in each year, meaning it would take more than seven years to pay off the debt if the federal government didn’t spend a penny. And there’s no way to charge enough tariffs to do it either. Even if we could recover $3 billion every day from tariffs, it would still take 33 years — not including interest — to pay off the debt.

I believe President Trump’s second term could succeed far beyond his tariff program if he is willing to tackle the debt and three other broken areas of our economy: the Federal Reserve, the stock market, and the tax system. Let’s start with the debt.

Prior to 1933, the US backed its debts with gold. Under the gold standard, the government effectively could only print dollars equal to the amount of gold it had stored at Fort Knox. This made tremendous sense, because the US currency was tied to a US asset that served to value the entire currency.

In 1971, President Richard Nixon terminated the gold standard. The nation has been printing money ever since, driving debt to previously unimaginable levels. But today, we have an opportunity to pay off that debt once and for all by adopting what I call the Asset Standard.

The US has assets that are worth thousands of times the value of its gold. In addition to gold, these include public lands, parks, infrastructure, schools, buildings, hospitals, un-mined natural resources, planes, ships, weaponry, military installations, brand value, etc. An accounting would likely arrive at a value of the US assets in quadrillions or even quintillions. We can use those assets to back the currency of the United States.

The Asset Standard provides a one-time opportunity for the United States to pay off all its debts and even fund its obligations for underfunded social programs like Medicare, Social Security, and perhaps even one or two more long-term gifts to US citizens (such as universal health care). This could provide a truly wonderful future for our citizens today and for future generations.

Economists, who act like they know everything but know nothing for certain, will surely denounce this idea for many reasons. They’ll say it will lead to the dollar being devalued by the rest of the world. But the US has more than enough assets to back its dollars, so that argument simply won’t be justified.

Case in point: Suppose the US government sent a check to every person, entity, and country that currently holds its bonds and notes (all the creditors of US debt) with a thank-you note saying that the debt is hereby paid back.

Say we send a check for $768.6 billion to China, the amount the US owed them as of November 2024 according to Investopedia.com. What would they do? Would they return it and say it’s no good, like a bank would for insufficient funds? No!  The Chinese, Japanese, and your aunt Mary would deposit the check into their bank account and wait anxiously for it to clear.  And, IT WILL CLEAR because it will be issued from the US Federal Reserve Bank!

Many consider the US to already be bankrupt because, they say, its debts exceed its assets. Yet the entire world continues to lend the US money by purchasing its treasury notes and bonds. Clearly, those same people already believe that the US is not bankrupt and that they will be paid back — with interest. This truism is proof of the whole concept: As long as everyone continues to use US dollars, the currency is valid and valuable.

Economists will argue the Asset Standard would encourage the US government to simply write checks for anything and everything it wants. To prevent this from happening, it would need to be enacted concurrently with a constitutional amendment requiring the US government to have a balanced budget — forever. Since the government could no longer spend more than it takes in in taxes, it would need to establish and maintain a large emergency reserve to cover wars, pandemics, and other disasters.

A strong US — with no debt, fully funded social programs, and a new, fair tax structure (also covered in my book) — will yield a strong dollar and probably the best environment for economic growth of any country in history.

Imagine that the US never has debt or interest payments; has all its important social programs fully funded; has a fair, yet vibrant tax structure; and requires a balanced budget in the future. The US would come out of its current state of intensive care with a totally clean bill of health — and be prepared to provide opportunities for growth and happiness to its citizens for generations.

Written by Mitch Francis.
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