U.S. debt is like a Hallmark movie boyfriend who eventually gets dumped for a small town firefighter, budget watchdog warns 

This rom-com formula is now a staple of holiday TV programming: a busy professional from the big city goes back home for Christmas and falls for a local guy after admitting her current boyfriend wasn’t her true soul mate.

According to Martha Gimbel, executive director of the Yale Budget Lab, this trope could also describe the bond market’s feelings about U.S. debt.

During a Senate hearing this week, she was asked what might trigger a debt crisis and why it hasn’t happened yet despite the explosion of borrowing in recent years. Gimbel replied it’s basic supply and demand, and investors are settling for the easier option, even if it doesn’t meet all their needs—they simply don’t have a better option right now, but that may not always be the case.

“The way that I sort of put it is we are currently the boyfriend at the beginning of the Hallmark movie in the big city where the girlfriend is still going out with him even though she knows that it’s wrong,” she explained. “But at some point she’s gonna go home to the small town and find the nice firefighter and realize that there’s another option.”

For now, as Gimbel explained, investors are settling for the status quo, but it’s only a matter of time before we hit a Sleepless in Stagflation moment and investors find better options. Much like...