Well, on the bright side most democracies are not explicitly about profit-making and/or cost-cutting as their first priority, even if it's the first priority of individual politicians.
I would agree with your statement that most western governments are not explicitly motivated by cost cutting and profit seeking. It would seem evident when we look at the trajectory of the US national debt in the past 40 or so years. However, I do not know if this is a good or bad thing. Will the national debt ever be paid off? And if not, what will the consequences be?
A nation paying its debt would actually not be as beneficial as you think, considering today's society runs on debt, having it is actually beneficial to an extent for relations, trade, to avoid war etc.
Now whether things should be this way am not sure, but a nation simply paying its debt off without significant changes to the role debt plays is not the answer.
