I don’t think Americans would enjoy the alternative of defaulting on that debt, or the counterfactual of not having raised that debt in the first place
> or the counterfactual of not having raised that debt in the first place
I'm pretty sure most of us would enjoy a different timeline where we didn't sink over $1 trillion in the Iraq war or another $2 trillion on the F-35, where we didn't mindlessly increase the military budget every cycle, where Republican administrations didn't cut taxes on the wealthy every time they won the presidency in the last half century, or where the TSA and DHS weren't created.
Every item I mentioned either increased government spending or reduced its income, both of which contribute to increased deficits and debt.
You're welcome to argue whether I'm correct that americans would be better off without any of them, but it's simple math that every single one of them contributed to our current debt.
But yeah, having to pay your debts do suck