Tonight: Debt Debate – Addressing The $38 Trillion Elephant In The Room

Tyler Durden 2025.10.23 2 min read

Tonight at 7 pm ET, ZeroHedge and George Gammon (of the Rebel Capitalist show) are hosting a debate over America’s mounting public debt – which now sits at over $38 trillion – and what to do about it.

Our debaters bring two sharply opposing solutions, while Gammon, a self-described anti-government capitalist, moderates this high-stakes debate over how (or whether) the U.S. can navigate its way through record public debt.

Michael Green (Simplify Asset Management): The Keynesian-Growth Case

Green argues that persistent fiscal deficits aren’t a threat but a catalyst. In his view, government spending fuels innovation, productivity, and human progress – allowing growth to outpace obligations.

By extending credit today, America can build the wealth and technology that make tomorrow’s debt affordable.

Key question: Can the nation truly grow its way out of debt, or is that faith misplaced in a slowing world?

Listen to Green explain the virtue of delayed economic pain (about 30 seconds from the marked timestamp):

Patrick Newman (Mises Institute): The case for Default

Newman takes the opposite view: sovereign debt isn’t just risky – it’s immoral. He contends that borrowing today to pay with future taxes amounts to coercion and corruption, a system of privilege that rewards insiders while punishing citizens. His solution is radical honesty – repudiate the debt and dismantle the leviathan state.

Newman’s book Cronyism: Liberty versus Power in Early America takes aim at how even the Founding Fathers helped entrench this exploitative model.