>>23850425Unlike in personal finance, when you're talking about national finances (or business finances, which are very similar), having some debt is usually a good thing, because it means you can spend money in order to make more money.
If the country borrows money, spends it on things like infrastructure and job creation, and ends up with more of the population in work, earning more money, and paying more tax, then this extra tax ought to be enough to pay the extra interest on the bigger amount of debt. That's a good thing because it means the country's finances are growing. As the country's finances grow, its ability to repay debt grows, and it would be wrong not to take advantage of that.
On the other hand, if the reason you're running at a deficit is because no one is in work so you're not collecting much tax, but you're having to borrow money to pay the salaries of civil servants, then that's bad.
It is very easy to just see the debt and not the whole picture:
The financial position of the United States includes assets of at least $269.6 trillion (1576% of GDP) and debts of $145.8 trillion (852% of GDP) to produce a net worth of at least $123.8 trillion (723% of GDP,) as of Q1 2014. (Verify these numbers yourself don't just take my word for it).
We may have trillions in debt, but we also have trillions more in assets. As long as growth is better than the debt, it will be irresponsible not to borrow more to help grow the economy more.
Moreoever, most of the debts are actually self contained within US, where businesses lend each other and US citizens buy bonds etc.
Finally, the US can actually never go bankrupt, in a sense, since our debt is issued in our own currency, which is fiat. High debt in the long run may not be wise but not having debt is worse. And because US dollar is the lingua franca of the financial world, most transactions are done in US dollars anyway, allowing Us to borrow large sums of money without burdening it with large interests.
