'It's Not Like They Can Repo Kentucky' — Dave Ramsey Breaks Down The $36 Trillion National Debt In Simple Terms After Caller Asks Why Pay It

Last year on "The Ramsey Show," a caller named Casey from Amarillo, Texas, picked up the phone and did what most Americans won't: he admitted he didn't really get how the national debt works.

"I'm a little embarrassed because this is really going to showcase my ignorance of the subject," Casey told Dave Ramsey, before rattling off three surprisingly common questions: Who do we owe $33 trillion to? Why did we borrow it in the first place? And is it even possible — or remotely logical — to pay it off?

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Turns out, Casey voiced what a lot of people quietly wonder. The national debt gets thrown around in headlines and campaign speeches, but for the average person, it's about as clear as a tax form written in Latin.

So Ramsey did what he does best — broke it all down in plain English, no fluff, and a few haymakers of truth along the way.

Who Do We Owe?

"We owe the money to whoever bought the Treasury bills," Ramsey explained. "If I bought a $100,000 Treasury bond, that means the United States of America owes me $100,000."

These bonds are basically government IOUs. People — and yes, other countries — buy them, and the U.S. promises to pay them back with interest. "Now, I know they're never gonna pay the bond," Ramsey said, "or if they do, they're gonna pay it by issuing another one."

So, yeah. It's like paying off one credit card with another and calling it fiscal policy.

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Ramsey warned that while most of this debt is held domestically, the foreign-held portion — like the chunk owned by China — is "a little dangerous… but it's not like they can repo Kentucky."

Why Did We Borrow This Much?

Short answer? Because the government spends more than it makes — just like people with five credit cards and no emergency fund.

"When the revenue coming in from taxes and other things won't cover the expenses of highways and military and $45,000 toilet seats and a billion dollars to this country and 8 billion to that country," Ramsey said, "we give billions and billions and billions away overseas when we don't have the income in a year."

That gap between spending and revenue is called the deficit, and every time we add to it, the total debt grows. Even when politicians say they're "cutting the deficit," Ramsey said, "All that means is they didn't go over budget quite as much."

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Can We Actually Pay It Off?

"Mathematically, we could," Ramsey said. "I don't think we have the political willpower to do it."

Why not? Because paying off the debt would require cutting a lot of things. And that would get ugly, fast.

"Tell your Uncle Henry who gets a subsidy because he runs a dairy farm that he's not going to get that anymore — he's not voting for that congressman," Ramsey said. 

He pointed out that huge chunks of the budget are now just interest on the existing debt. And you can't exactly skip out on that payment. "So where are you gonna cut?" Ramsey asked. "You gonna cut the military? You gonna cut foreign aid? Highway funding? You think anyone's gonna be okay with that?"

Ramsey even described a road near one of his own properties that hasn't been fixed because the local government is waiting on $14 million in federal funds — money they've been expecting for five years. "Meanwhile the road's a damn goat track."

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Everyone's waiting for someone else to foot the bill. "Everybody's on the dadgum take," he said. "And nobody wants to say no. Saying no is the only way you balance a budget."

Ramsey summed it up like this: "It's not a math problem. It's a willpower problem." His co-host, George Kamal, even tossed in a nod to Warren Buffett, who once said: "I could end the deficit in five minutes. You just pass a law that says anytime there's a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for reelection."

Ramsey loved the idea. "You redefine what winning looks like," he said. Maybe Congress needs to learn a new word, he suggested — an ancient, nearly extinct word in Washington: "No."

A year later, have lawmakers finally learned to say "no"? It's… complicated. The Trump administration has proposed $1.7 trillion in spending cuts over the next decade, targeting everything from Medicare and Medicaid to the Department of Education — sparking backlash over potential harm to low-income families, rural schools, and essential services. While the goal is to rein in the $36 trillion national debt, the political firestorm proves Ramsey's point: "Saying no is the only way you balance a budget," but in Washington, it's still the hardest word to say.

As he put it: "You press your tongue to the roof of your mouth, release, and let air go by… No."

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