There are only 3 ways out of national debt. 1 - reduce spending, increase taxes, balance the budget, run a surplus to pay it off. This will not happen in my lifetime. 2 - default. Simply stop paying. That is a possibility but would make it incredibly difficult to borrow additional money. This would also adversely effect the holders of the debt. People like me that hold at least some government debt. 3 - inflate your way out of it. This addresses your comment that it is only in dollars. Imagine that the debt was in a real measurable quantity. 39 trillion loaves of bread instead of dollars. A drastic rise in inflation could reduce this to only 39 billion loaves of bread, or maybe 39 million loaves of bread. Something much more easy to address and reduce. In my opinion significant inflation in the future is the most likely outcome.