Let’s play a game. Try to come up with ways to pay off the $11 trillion national debt. Here’s some figures to get us started: last year the national budget was $2,650 billion dollars. We spent $412 billion of that paying JUST INTEREST. The debt has increased by more than 20% since January.

And… go!

1) Print money to pay off the debt, unleashing the threat of hyperinflation upon the markets and destroying the same American economy that we’re spending money to try to fix.

2) Raise taxes to an uncomfortable rate across the board, put a freeze new spending, and attempt to pay off our debt over the next 30-40 years and pray the decrease in investment and productivity doesn’t destroy the same American economy that we’re spending money to try to fix.

3) Sharply raise taxes to a crippling rate across the board, don’t bother with a spending freeze, and maybe pay off the debt if we get around to it. I like this one because it combines the problems of “solutions” one and two while allowing us to continue to increase the burden of government upon Americans.

4) Declare an American bankruptcy. Make all debt owed by the government of the United States of America void. Put the bondholders out of business, ruin people’s retirement plans, royally piss off pretty much every country in the industrialized world, and insure that the American government can never get a loan again. Without money to flex its military muscles, the world goes to pot and the shrinking international market puts the breaks on international trade and destroys the American economy we’re spending money to try to fix.

5) Switch over to an international currency which we have no control over whatsoever. The dollar gets completely tanked, but no one cares because we don’t use it any more. The next time an American recession hits we can’t the Europeans to agree to lower international interest rates and what would normally be a minor recession turns into a period of zero investment delaying the recovery and destroying the economy we’re spending money to to try to fix. Bonus: China, who has a long and illustrious history of manipulating their currency declines to join in and proceeds to do everything it can to beat us like red headed step children for reneging on our debts to them.

What say you? Have any better ideas? The winner gets my vote next time he or she runs for elected office.