That&#x27;s not at all how national economies work, especially when debt is denominated in the nation&#x27;s own currency. You simply can not compare a national economy to a single household&#x27;s finances. At present, the US is incentivised to borrow, because the cost of borrowing in nearly zero. When you compare paying down debt with an interest rate of nearly 0%, to almost any other investment, paying down debt loses. Or put another way, any expenditure that has a return greater than the cost of borrowing is a better investment than paying down debt.