"Trillions of dollars" doesn't really give any insight into the scope of the problem, it just suggests the number is really large.
The scope of the problem is that we have about 1.5 years worth of GDP in debt. So, with yearly payments of 10% of GDP, we could pay down the debt in 15 years. Suppose through automation we increase productivity by 50%. We could shorten the work week by 25%, add a tax to pay down 10% of the debt each year, and still maintain exactly the same standard of living while paying down the national debt in 10 years.
Point being, the United States has no shortage of money to pay down our obligations.
The obligations extend well beyond the debt. Social security, medicare, and medicaid will be much more costly than the debt for at least 20 years (at current levels). Public sector pensions are another huge non-debt liability.
Another interesting wrinkle that lukeschlather brings up is that if the productivity increases are the result of more and more automation, does that not also mean that there are fewer and fewer people paying into social security? Or am I misunderstanding the statement?
That's only assuming that costs go up or stay the same. They might, but if the tax burden becomes higher than the net increase in production, they could very well lower prices to better compete.
Long story short, you MIGHT be right, but if the economy is depressed by all the newly jobless, it seems a stretch that prices would skyrocket, or even stay flat so long as automation provides more wiggle room at the margins.
The scope of the problem is that we have about 1.5 years worth of GDP in debt. So, with yearly payments of 10% of GDP, we could pay down the debt in 15 years. Suppose through automation we increase productivity by 50%. We could shorten the work week by 25%, add a tax to pay down 10% of the debt each year, and still maintain exactly the same standard of living while paying down the national debt in 10 years.
Point being, the United States has no shortage of money to pay down our obligations.