As a nation, we are trying to borrow ourselves out of debt. We cannot pay the national debt. Indeed, it is not inaccurate or misleading to point out that the national debt is our money. The comparative indifference shown by the public to the news of a budget surplus may mirror that public's indifference to the subject of money generally. Let's consider the words of Robert Hemphill, formerly a Federal Reserve official.
Money is the most important subject intellectual persons can investigate and reflect upon.
It is so important that our present civilization may collapse unless it is widely understood and its defects remedied very soon. And that seems to be exactly what it is doing.