Fun fact: the US has never (except for a short period during the Clinton admin) repaid any of its debt, it just made it insignificant through inflation and economic growth.
Edit for the pedantic: I obviously mean total debt.
Edit for the pedantic: I obviously mean total debt.
There are other times U.S. has paid down debt.
Any individual who has a debt would like very much to also be able to continue to borrow money indefinitely and pay the old debt without worries.
Then just look at the graph of national debt both in nominal and real value.
(from article, but not referencing content besides the chart https://seekingalpha.com/article/241751-visualizing-the-u-s-... )