Narayana Kocherlakota, Columnist

The Federal Debt Is Nothing to Lose Sleep Over

The government can borrow as much from taxpayers as it wants.

January 16, 2020 at 11:30 AM UTC

Narayana Kocherlakota is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is a professor of economics at the University of Rochester and was president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis from 2009 to 2015.

This should bother no one.
Photographer: Callaghan O'Hare/Bloomberg

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Policy makers and voters often express concern about the level of the federal deficit, which topped $1 trillion last year, and the national debt, now more than $23 trillion. But, unlike a household that owes money to a bank, the U.S. government has the ability to tax its creditors. This power means that the federal government can afford any level of debt that is owed to American taxpayers.

Here’s an example of what I mean.