I like what Balgair has to say, to some degree - though voting without education may backfire, so it's not that simple.
Some off-the-cuff ideas re; debt reduction, in the hope that others find their flaws & suggest others:
- Facilitating P2P debt may help make debt cheaper by crowdsourcing the "overhead" of evaluating creditors. I believe there's a site that does this but can't recall the name.
- Reduce student debt by making expensive college degrees obsolete. I think the next step in that (now that we have libraries, wikipedia, coursera, udacity, etc) may be changing hiring practices: a startup that helps companies hire based on experience/aptitude rather than falling back to the college degree heuristic could have a big impact. Relatedly, other startups (or FOSS) might replace the traditional degree in other ways, like guiding students through free online tracks or connecting them to advisors, mentors, internships, peers, and jobs.
- Change how employers pay employees. Most large employers have cheap debt and/or lots of cash, while many of their lowest-paid employees have terrible credit. This means they have to rely on mind-bogglingly expensive services like Payday loans and credit cards to cover their basic expenses (which don't come due on payday). A startup that helps employers pay daily instead of fortnightly, or pay bills directly, or even provide credit directly to their employees could put a lot of money back in poor pockets.
- I don't know the other main sources of American debt. Car payments? Large houses? I just don't know. But a systematic investigation of the sources of the debt, the costs of servicing it, and the underlying reasons it's required may be a decent way to scout out some good ideas!
Ultimately, though, much of this comes down to Policy and Culture. Student debt would evaporate if we just had free education. Cost of Living would likely plummet if we had terrific public transportation. There may be tax schemes (land taxes?) that would lower rent/home ownership costs. A culture of minimalism would likely also reduce cost of living =)