When Does US Debt Become Genuinely Bad? | WSJ?

Imagine your piggy bank is full of coins, that’s the US debt. But sometimes, instead of saving up for a new toy, you keep borrowing more coins from friends to buy candy every day, that's like how the US government works.

If you borrow too much and never pay it back, your piggy bank might not be enough to buy that new toy anymore. That’s when debt becomes genuinely bad. The US debt is like a really big piggy bank, but if the government keeps borrowing more coins (money) every year without paying back what they owe, eventually they’ll have so many loans that it might hurt everyone.

It gets serious when the government can't pay its bills, like when you forget to pay your friend back for that candy and now you’re in trouble. The WSJ is asking, how much debt is too much? If the piggy bank keeps getting heavier with borrowed coins, one day it might not be able to keep going, just like how you’d have to skip lunch to save up for that toy.

So, when your piggy bank gets so full of borrowed coins that it can’t move forward without help, that’s when US debt becomes genuinely bad. Imagine your piggy bank is full of coins, that’s the US debt. But sometimes, instead of saving up for a new toy, you keep borrowing more coins from friends to buy candy every day, that's like how the US government works.