By paying down the debt, you mean issuing less debt over time? The US government is not an uncle that pays off his debt so he can retire and move to Florida. An individual does that, but the household sector as a whole does not pay down debt, because for every uncle moving to Florida, there is an Aunt borrowing for a new house. So instead, we talk about things like sectoral debt ratios and do not use language like "when will people in Maine finally pay down debt, I'm sick of seeing people in Maine owing debt".

The government is a sector of the economy. You can argue that we are borrowing too much, and I would agree, but you are not gonna fix that until you address the foreign capital inflows. That means rolling back the investor rights agreements. As long as foreign nations can print money and use it to buy dollars in order to stimulate their exports, the US is going to have a problem with excessive debt loads. The flipside of that is that the US will not have a problem of foreign investors decreasing their holdings. It will increase every single year, in line with foreign export demands. If anyone tells you the opposite, just look for the error or the lie, because I guarantee you there is one. This article has both.