Yea, I don't get the significance of $33T. It's a monotonically increasing number these days.
The takeaway from all of this isn't necessarily that we need to cut spending on social programs while maintaining a larger military than the next several nations combined, which is what the deficit hawks referenced in this article want, it's that we should rollback the tax cuts that led the deficits in the first place. We should also be increasing domestic investments that would make us more attractive to outside investors rather than becoming an over-militarized hollowed out shell of a former super-power.
If you treat your domestic economy and workforce like a leveraged buyout target, siphoning every ounce of profit out of it while saddling it with debt, the end result is likely the same as with many leveraged buyouts: collapse.
If everyone paid 100% income tax it would be paid off in 1.5 years. So typically you could increase taxes by 15% and pay it off in 10 years -- assuming, of course, you can keep congress from earmarking their way to political ecstacy.
Another approach is to reduce congressional spending. We subsidize the oil and farming industries heavily -- for reasons. But if you believe that the market is the most efficient use of resources, then ask yourself, why should congress choose the winners? Removing oil and farm subsidies would be ~$50B/year right there.
Also it's worth noting that people typically can buy houses worth 2.5x of their annual income.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/216756/us-personal-incom...
Remember, government debt is an asset to the private sector. Money IS debt. The money in your bank account either came from government spending or someone else taking out a loan.
Japan can borrow cheaply and does not have those 'advantages'. So can Germany, France, Canada, etc—often at rates lower than the US:
* https://www.investing.com/rates-bonds/world-government-bonds
The govt spends other peoples money. It can do bad things. But it never goes out of businessess. When it spends it poorly as it is often the case, they take more money from people. If they can't, they take it from unborn people. Eventually this builds up a debt.
And then it implodes like you describe
Everyone knows the US needs to roll back the batshit tax advantages it keeps handing out to certain groups that largely already have all the money, although few seems willing to say that in a way that may impact them getting paid.
120% debt to GDP ratio is "the problem"