Pedestrians stop to view the National Debt Clock in New York, U.S., on Tuesday, April 19, 2011. As of October 2018, the national debt has risen to over $21 trillion.

As the U.S. national debt continues to increase, billionaire Douglas Durst, whose father Seymour put up the National Debt Clock in Times Square in 1989, believes the solution is for the government to collect more money. "I think America has more of a revenue problem than a spending problem," he recently told The Washington Post. His suggested remedy: Ask for more from the rich. "I support higher taxes on people like me," he says. Durst believes that it will be necessary for the U.S. to raise taxes in order to pay down the debt, and he doesn't agree with the policy of giving tax cuts to affluent people like him when funds could be used to ease the debt burden instead. Durst called the 2017 tax bill "an overall step in the wrong direction."

Why the national debt matters

Click to enlarge Although individuals aren't directly responsible for paying back the national debt, the amount the country owes can still affect you, because it can lead to higher interest rates, lower stock market returns and slower economic growth. Plus, the more the government must spend on interest on its debt, the less it has to fund local projects you may care about, such as improving or maintaining infrastructure.

Disagreement about how to reduce the deficit

I don't think all the new tax revenue has to come only from the top, but, given the huge rise in inequality in recent decades, I think the top is definitely where we should start. Josh Bivens EPI research director

However, others argue that spending cuts aren't the best solution. According to the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, Durst's proposal to raise taxes on the super rich is more practical, and also more humane. "U.S. spending is pretty low compared to other advanced economies," EPI research director Josh Bivens tells CNBC Make It. "The idea that our spending is wasteful or inefficient or clearly too high seems wrong to me. Given that most of what this spending buys is useful and popular, this to me just means we should finance it and higher taxes should be part of that."

Most of America's domestic spending goes to "very popular, economically valuable programs," Bivens says, like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. "The projected growth in spending is near entirely driven by the health programs. If we cut these health programs in the name of budget-balancing, this wouldn't make the need for health care go away, it would just shift costs onto private households." The best strategy to combat America's "unsustainable" level of debt may be a combination of the two approaches, former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen told CNBC's Steve Liesman at the Charles Schwab Impact conference in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. "If I had a magic wand, I would raise taxes and cut retirement spending," she said.

Bill Gates also supports higher taxes on the rich