Why can’t a government forgive it’s own internal debt?
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It absolutely can, and [has](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing). The U.S. Government running out of debt is akin to Chuck E. Cheese running out of tokens: It can only happen because they choose to make it happen.
But that doesn’t matter, because the problem is not, and never will be, the debt. The problem is the *spending*, and what you are or aren’t getting for it. The U.S. government could stop taxing people tomorrow, and print new dollars to pay for every program they wanted to. But spending those dollars has a consequence, regardless of what you buy with them: Once they’re spent, they go out to join the rest of private-sector economy. What happens when everyone has more money to spend, and there isn’t enough of the stuff they want to buy? You guessed it, **INFLATION**.
We’ve seen this many, many times, in many, many countries, from Weimar Germany to Zimbabwe to Venezuela, and while the U.S.’s position as a global default currency cushions the dollar somewhat against the adverse effects of inflation, you had better believe the rest of the planet would drop the dollar like a burning bag of dogshit if it were to exhibit a sustained rate of double-digit inflation.
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