What If We Paid Off The Debt? : Planet Money We got our hands on a secret government report outlining what once looked like a potential crisis: The possibility that the U.S. government might pay off its entire debt.
What If We Paid Off The Debt?
We got our hands on a secret government report outlining what once looked like a potential crisis: The possibility that the U.S. government might pay off its entire debt.
It sounds ridiculous today. But not so long ago, the prospect of a debt-free U.S. was seen as a real possibility with the potential to upset the global financial system.
Today on the show, we hear from the economist who wrote the report. And we look at how things turned out so, so differently.
For more, see:
- Our post on the report
- The full text of the report
- How the surplus turned into a deficit, in one chart
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