Taxation the rich is not the only way to repay debt.
Increasing taxation on the rich is not intended to pay off debts. It is intended to soften the drop in standards of living and purchasing power for the poor when as a consequence of inflation USD depreciates significantly and interest rates are raised.
US government doesn't provide social protections or public healthcare. Public services such as education, transportation etc. are funded through local property taxes which is why their quality can vary so drastically between rich and poor areas. Government dealt with the issue by deflecting attention away from it by enabling increased consumption levels which make people think they're better off than they really are.
That requires low-cost loans, which were made possible through continuing inflation, and importation of low-cost goods, which was made possible by artificial demand for USD keeping the purchasing power high on international markets. Land and housing have also been traditionally more affordable in the US than in Europe due to supply of land and availability of private transportation.
Now however the inflation is so extensive that it created asset price bubbles that made housing unaffordable in the most productive parts of the country. Due to lack of redistribution money mostly goes to highest earners and they in turn take control of ever increasing portions of real economy which exacerbates the bubble. If USD was to lose purchasing power internationally not only would it mean that poor people will be forced to reduce consumption but it also means that rich people will no longer be able to keep their wealth in USD. Some of it will go to other economies, but those are struggling with the same problems and are looking for ways to restrict inflow of foreign capital. So much of it will have to be transferred to real assets in the US. This will put further pressure on the poor who are already struggling on all fronts being crushed by lack of sufficient income, lack of public services, lack of prospective jobs and socio-demographic factors like ethnicity, social class, legal status.
Real asset economy is a zero-sum game so real assets that are basic goods and services have to be redistributed if necessary or societal breakdown is inevitable. That is the reason why welfare reforms in Europe were introduced after the wars.
The US not only doesn't have a social protection system in place. It doesn't even have a culture of redistribution. It has a culture of "charity" which does nothing for solving the issue of rich devouring ever greater portions of the economy in a competition with each other.
Studies have shown that poor people support each other to a much greater extent than middle-class. The class structure is a hierarchy of anti-social individualism in populations. The "class consciousness" that the middle and upper class share is an illusion. It is nothing else than delusional selfishness.
The rich don't do it because they hate the poor. They do it because they hate the other rich. It's like war. The king doesn't send his soldiers to die because he hates them. He sends them to die because he hates the other king. Which means that they will never stop. The only solution is to get rid of every person who has this type of personality or reduce their resources (wealth) so that their competition doesn't harm the entire society.
There's nothing in the US political system that can achieve this peacefully. The American solution is a revolution (1776) or war (1861).
There is literally no "reform era" in the US apart from New Deal which was an attempt to stop and slow down reform. Reactionary New Deal was done at the height of US industrial power. Now what? Maoism for online grifters and influencers?
Redistribution is an internal measure aimed at preserving social order - a way to make sure than when everyone has less for themselves everyone will share more so nobody has the reason to fight for resources. My advice is: invest in socialist memes. They're going to go big in America. Just make sure that there's space in the front. You may need to add "national" to make them sell.
Selling assets is another way to repay debt. There is over $220 Trillion in assets the US govt can sell or privatize to repay debt.
And very soon it will be $220 quadrillion, then $220 quintillion...
This value is an accounting trick. Assets are valued at whatever the current market price is which depends on supply and demand. I recommend you look up government asset sales in other countries following financial crises in the past. The same assets which were valued hundreds of billions were sold for mere millions following insolvency.
Example:
Let's say Elon Musk owns 100 million of Tesla shares and current market is for 10 million Tesla shares, each valued at $1000. This puts Musk at "100 billion dollars". But that is not real wealth.
Let's say he decides to sell 10 million shares. Current market for Tesla shares is 20 million and let's say that the news of performance was bad and that reduces demand for shares which have double in supply. Musk sells his 10 million shares for $500. This means that suddenly he is valued at "45 billion dollars" rather than "90 billion". This undercuts some of his other investments and so he sells another 10 million shares increasing the market to 30 million shares which trade at $300. Suddenly Musk is valued at "24 billion dollars" instead of 80.
When you compare the current 24 billion with the 100 billion in the beginning - where did the 76 billion go? Nowhere. It never existed. It was just an accounting trick and it applies to all valuations.
What the US government has is real assets: area of land, rights to resources etc. What they're really worth is up to debate because of supply and demand.
This has broader application to the issue of "debt" which you treat here too literally. I said it was an oversimplification. I should have said it is a
metaphor. It might have saved me time spent on this explanation. But probably not.
When China purchases US debt - let's say 1 trillion in 2010 - it does so with expectation that upon maturity they receive 1 trillion plus interest. However this is calculated based on past and future trends which indicate whether the creditor is going to earn, maintain or lose
real value. In some circumstances losing less by investing in treasury bills than retaining cash is a gain. However money is means to an end. You can't eat it. You can't put it into the tank. Serious investors care only about real value. Money is a tool to resolve scarcity issues in the real economy. It is never the aim in itself, only an aim.
At some point inflation will be so high that the future trends will indicate that investing in real assets provides better long-term return on value than investing in the best financial instruments. Government-issued financial instruments will depreciate too quickly and have potential minimum value of zero while real assets have their intrinsic value.
So when that trend begins to show up in projections what China does is go to America and say "
Your paper no good anymore. Give real shit." and America says "
How about we give you twice as much paper as before." to which China says "
You stupid ? We invent paper money! We know how this shit work. Give real shit or no credit.". And obviously America is not going to do that to any meaningful extent.
The hyperinflation in Weimar was caused by Germany's intention to inflate themselves out of war reparations. Nobody gives up real goods if they can go to war - which was a sufficient threat even though Germany was effectively demilitarized after WW1.
The problem for America is that they are vulnerable at home. If they threaten war their unsustainable economic system puts ordinary Americans in trouble. That obviously can be used to redirect anger at someone else (here: China, but possibly someone else) much like Hitler did in Germany after his inflationary measures failed and almost brought about economic collapse in 1938-39 - the fallout of the so called "second dip" of the Great Depression.
If America had a robust social protection system it could clench its teeth and work its way out of the problem to some extent. This is what Europe did after WW1, after WW2, in the 1970s, in the 2010s. America always inflated itself out of the problem because of the dollar and that really big stick in the Pentagon.
But during the Cold War America never borrowed in the USSR. It was the other way around. Which is why the US could do what it did.
Not this time. China owns trillions of US debt, it has a currency that is capable of supplanting the USD for energy and other international trades with the world's largest economy, and it is a military peer/near-peer. It doesn't need American paper. It was only means to an end and it meant that at a certain point in time China could force the US to do something it didn't want to do but was obliged to.
That is the "debt" I was talking about. It is not literally about money owed but what it means to owe money. So far America owed a lot but acted as if it didn't. Now that changes and people in DC will neither like nor understand that change. And what we do not understand,
we fear. And fear is a poor ally and even poorer advisor.
Hope that helped.