No, bonds held by the federal reserve are rolled over. The debt is paid back but it is immediately replaced with new debt of equivalent value, off of the open market. The process is described here: https://www.newyorkfed.org/markets/treasury-rollover-faq

>On the auction settlement date, the maturing Treasury securities are exchanged for the newly issued Treasury securities.

In net, the debt is only paid back when the central bank is actively reducing its treasury holdings, by rolling over less than the total amount of maturing debt. That is basically the reverse process of 'printing money', it takes the money back out of the wider economy.

>Why do you think people buy them?

Certainly 'people' buy them because they intend to get paid back, yes, but the central bank doesn't have the same motives. It increases and decreases the amount of treasuries it holds in order to control the money supply. That's the whole purpose of it holding treasuries.

edit: here's some bedtime reading https://theconversation.com/how-the-federal-reserve-literall...

The level of disingenuous is absurd at this point.

Do investors get paid in exchange for returning the bonds?

Yes.

The fact that the government repeats the process is irrelevant to the simple fact that the Cash printed is done so by first securing an equal amount of funds to back them which is then returned with interest to the bond holder, inherently meaning that the Cash is not printed out of nothing but rather printed explicitly to represent real world value.

The amount of wealth in circulation and the amount of cash in circulation are not equal.

Wealth is constantly changing as new commodities and services are produced which create new wealth "out of nothing". You're engaged ina complete misattribution of cause and effect

At this point it seems intentionally deceptive...

Poe's law is in effect and I will begin treating you as a troll until proven otherwise.