>Paying of the interest on a debt gets you nowhere especially if the net amount still due continues to rise. This means you ain't even touching the principal and are not likely to even be paying off all the interest since the debt is so great.

Given the two alternatives, not paying anything toward the interest and in fact running budget deficits year to year (Reagan, Bush I, Bush II), or actually running budget surpluses and using at least some of the surplus to pay down the debt (Clinton), I'll take the later.