The word “need” presupposes a particular outcome. You don’t “need” to breathe, unless you want to live. The universe doesn’t “need” to keep existing. So in lan

The word “need” presupposes a particular outcome. You don’t “need” to breathe, unless you want to live. The universe doesn’t “need” to keep existing. So in language, when we say we need something, it’s a need for a particular and often presumptive / implied outcome. In this case the purpose of the government is to provide for the general welfare of its citizens. The value of the US dollar depends on the “full faith and credit” of the United States actually meaning something. Therefore the government does need to show a willingness and ability to pay its debts. The perceived future rate of inflation is a major variable in determining the interest rate that the US has to pay on its debt. Also, the US government needs to control the level of inflation in order to have a functioning economy. Given the widely accepted theory that printing arbitrarily large sums of money over time drives inflation, there are competing forces that act in the short and long term that would dictate the right amount of money to print now, or into the future. Since the ultimate goal is to stabilize and grow the economy, the government does in fact need to not borrow until the currency collapses, and needs to be able to keep its debt to some reasonable multiple of GDP.