Former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan explains how the United States can pay down the debt. By printing money. Transcript:

David Gregory, moderator of “Meet The Press” on NBC: “Are U.S. treasury bonds still safe to invest in?”

Alan Greenspan, Former Chairman of the Federal Reserve: “Very much so. This is not an issue of credit rating, the United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print money to do that. So, there is zero probability of default.”

If I were to print new money it would be counterfeiting, which is illegal in the USA, and every other country in the world. When the US government creates new money it is not counterfeiting. The action and result is exactly the same, there are more dollars in circulation, except in magnitude. If I were to print new money it’d be maybe $1 million? When the government creates new money it is $1 trillion! Every year! What’s the difference? Every new dollar decreases the purchasing power of every dollar that currently exists. Why do we put up with this?