How to Respond to Your Conservative Family About 'The National Debt'
When your uncle says:
“The U.S. is in so much debt! We’re going to go bankrupt!”
Your first move is not to argue.
Your first move is to clarify the frame.
Calm voice, sip your drink:
“When you say ‘debt,’ what are you imagining it works like?”
Because most people are imagining household debt.
Where:
- if you don’t pay, someone takes your house,
- interest crushes you,
- and you go broke.
But a government is not a household.
Households use money.
Governments issue it.
This is not theory.
This is literally how currency works.
“Who do we even owe the debt to?”
This one is actually easy.
“Mostly to ourselves.”
U.S. debt is:
- held by Americans,
- in U.S. banks,
- in U.S. retirement accounts,
- in U.S. pension funds,
- in U.S. mutual funds.
When conservatives say “the government owes money,”
they’re describing assets held by U.S. citizens.
Government debt = the private sector’s savings.
Cut the debt → you cut people’s retirement accounts.
No one actually wants that.
“But what about China?”
Calm.
Polite.
Surgical.
“China holds ~3% of U.S. debt. If they dumped it, they’d tank the value of their own investments. It’s not leverage—it’s codependency.”
Debt is not a chain.
It’s a web.
“But if we print money, won’t that cause inflation?”
Say:
“Inflation happens when we run out of real resources, not dollars.”
If we have:
- hospitals
- workers
- food
- housing capacity
- renewable energy
We can spend without raising prices.
Inflation happens when we hit supply limits. Not when we type numbers into a spreadsheet.
The question is capacity, not currency.
“So why do politicians make a big deal about the debt?”
This is the key.
Because if you convince people:
“We can’t afford to care for each other,”
then you can:
- cut healthcare,
- cut housing,
- cut transit,
- cut education,
- cut climate response,
all while:
- lowering taxes for the wealthy,
- privatizing public services,
- and increasing corporate leverage.
Debt panic is a tool to justify austerity.
Fear replaces solidarity.
Scarcity replaces imagination.
The Line That Ends the Conversation (Gently)
You say:
“Look, the issue isn’t whether we spend. We always spend. The question is what we buy.
Do we buy hospitals, schools, housing, and renewable energy?
Or do we buy tax cuts for the rich and bombs?”
If your uncle is honest, he knows the answer.
If he isn’t, the conversation was never about debt in the first place—it was about who he thinks deserves a future.
And now that is visible.
You didn’t argue.
You just took away the fog.