While there are some interested points about the national psyche, to me, you just can't ignore the deficit problem. Endlessly spending more money than you ean will eventually cause problems, whether you're an individual, business or government. I don't know if the problem will be this year or in 50 years, but something has to give somewhere along the line.
If the deficit is spent on infrastructure improvements that support greater prosperity in the private sector, then in the long run the country’s tax base expands and that debt can be paid off.
(On the one hand, in theory, if the people buying our debt are convinced that the government is using the borrowed money for that purpose, then they won’t bid our interest rates into the stratosphere as happened with Argentina et al. On the other hand, I’m not 100% sure how well that theory applies here, because a lot of the national debt-holders are foreign institutions that may be making geo-strategic calculations as well as profit-making calculations. On the other other hand, if our economy goes tits-up it’s not going to be good news for China, either.)
