I remember a cartoon from the 90's that did a pretty good job of explaining why the debt was rising. Three or four little donkeys with shovels were helping three or four little pachyderms with shovels fire up a huge furnace by loading it with huge bales of fiat currency. I can't remember the exact wording from the cartoon, but this is fairly close. One critter looks at another and says, "By working together we sure can build a huge fire."