I mean, a government can always create its own fiat currency without borrowing it. The conventional mechanism is to issue bonds and have the central bank create new currency to buy them off the treasury. There is "debt" on paper only.

wouldn't that look bad?

is it a buck-stopping-elsewhere thing?

why go the bother making two stages out of one deal, ass-covering, deniability issues?

whom, exactly do they think they're fooling?

if enough of the public understood, would they be able to call it honest?

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty