Hardly make a difference?
People in foreign countries see posts like this and they flat out know that we don't take the debt seriously.
Assuming we were $170 trillion in debt, what would be the consequences of averaged interest rates moving from 1% to 2% and staying there for 10 years?
And if the Federal Reserve can just increase its balance sheet by $100 trillion worth of treasuries and send the interest payments to Treasury, why are we still paying taxes?
We could be tax free for 50 years and still not reach $170 trillion in debt if there's no "debt."
We are paying taxes because
bonus 0) The best money is something that is and only can be money and not anything else, thus keeping it closest to its "true" value. Ergo printed money is the best money.
1) Taxes create money demand. If I have to pay sales taxes, income taxes, etc. only in dollars, then I better make sure when I'm earning my salary, I get some dollars. Might as well be my entire salary. Because of this, I'm willing to accept government made money. I need dollars for taxes, my grocer sells food and needs dollars for taxes, and both of us would rather use money, so we all prefer dollars. Pretty simple. This gives the government the power to spend--to buy goods, to build works, to arm its military, etc. But it's not a $1 tax to $1 spending ratio.
2) Taxes, which give us a money economy and therefore allow us to have the industrialized world we enjoy, thus have to come from somewhere. Ideally we want the least taxes for the most economy! This is where a lot of debate comes in, and where economic theory outside of this money theory/accounting I'm talking about (which I would assume you know because you read Business Insider and posted the sectoral balances graph, remember?) plays a role. What's the "most economy". What's the "least taxes"? Most people converge on something progressive--even conservatives when they break it down issue by issue. So we can have lower taxes and we can have higher taxes, but so long as the money demand function and the nominal deficit are in sync to maximize output (and freedom!) then we have the "right" tax level for that goal.
3) Related to point 2, taxes can curb inflation if its necessary. If we spend above full employment relative to our political economy (wealth equality, emotional desires to spend and save, laziness of investors, international trade, labor laws etc) then that extra spending will cause price increases, not quantity/output increases. That's also the point where spending cuts make sense. It's just a matter of situational priorities.
bonus 4th) We also pay taxes to non-federal gov't entities like state and city governments, which actually need taxes to fund themselves and do go into debt by issuing bonds. This is because the bonds are in units created by the fed. gov't, and not the municipal/state actors.
So taxes are still useful for spending (and dollar commerce), we just don't literally spend what we tax and we shouldn't tax as much as we spend.
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But perhaps more important is twice now you've said we should be quiet about this for the sake of foreign confidence. Haha why? It's not like our economy only runs because it's a big lie and we have to keep the secret. Foreign corporations and governments want dollars regardless of if we have a large treasury liability or not. Their having dollars means they can:
1) buy oil
2) buy American technology!!!
3) buy any other currency and therefore their technology (Euros, Yen, etc)
4) invest in American companies to service American markets
5) peg their currencies
6) as collateral to take out loans in foreign currencies to invest using foreign tech, expertise, capital etc.
7) cause market bubbles with sovereign wealth funds
but they don't do that if that money is in treasuries instead of cash
