How is having that much debt a good thing?
People often use their small local understanding of debt ("my debts are bad, because the legbreakers will come if I don't pay") as an interpretation/understanding mechanism for the entire economy, and that misleads them.
Buffett answers this in a previous paragraph about BNSF. BNSF has debt but they also have cash generation even in times of recession. This is really important. If you are unable to generate cash during recession and you have a ton of debt, you are dead.
A similar analogy applies to US. During recession, they can print money and generate cash. US will never default on their debt, or the probability of them defaulting is almost 0, hence the coveted AAA rating. Granted, the value of that printed money decreases right away, but eventually the value will stabilize w.r.t all other currencies and a stable store such as gold. Also note that the combined household wealth in US is nearing $100 trillion. That should count for something.
It's ok to have debt, if you have significant cash flow to cover your debt eventually, even in times of recession. Apple follows a similar philosophy. They raise debt for their share buybacks and dividends, even though they are sitting on a cash pile.
The US Government seems to have begun a habit of launching investigations of credit agencies that downgrade its credit rating. It's happened to S&P and to Egan-Jones.
Meaning the US government has not halted or suspended trading of the dollar-p ever. The US has, by all reasonable measures, paid back its debt on-time. If an entity has multiple billions, or even hundreds of billions, perhaps trillions of dollars to protect: where do you put your money that is equally safe? No where.
It's a good thing because it's secure. Because it pushes the world forward.
/shrug
The nominal value the deb does not matter. As the debt has been growing, so has the economy. Government debt should be measures in relation to GDP.
Alternative name for government debt is delayed taxation. If private sector can use money more productively, government should delay the taxation and take more debt. I'm not advocating MMT here, just saying that reasonable government debt equals using the US economy as a leverage.