From a couple of reads, your other thread and its linked article don't really seem to explain why America's gigantic national debt is a good thing; only trying to argue that it's not so bad after all.
And a good case might be made for national indebtedness during major economic downturns, to provide stimulus, which might then be paid off after recovery.
But massive, long-term indebtedness? I'm almost economically illiterate, so if these are mind-numbingly simple and/or factually incorrect objections please forgive me, but I'm keen to learn:
1 > Debt must be owed to either foreign or private interests, at the expense of the public. How can it be considered a good thing to keep handing over wads of public cash to other governments, private banks or wealthy speculators, however long payment is deferred? If it's necessary, so be it, and good on them for helping out the stimulus/recovery; but as a general public policy?
2 > Instability of interest rates could be crippling on a large debt. Your other thread said that interest on the US national debt halved between 2007 and 2015, if memory serves; which surely implies that under different circumstances it could just as easily double. Opinions seem to differ as to how much control the government has over those interest rates; your source claims little/none, that it's a mark of "investor confidence"; your critic claims that it's partly/mostly due to government controls. But I find it hard to imagine anyone would make those loans in the first place if interest was entirely up to government whimsy. So the possibility of higher rates on a large debt must surely be acknowledges?
3 > Paying the debt is either a cash-constrained financial burden, or requires creation of a lot of new money. Neither of which is a big problem with a small debt, but obviously the former is a big problem (and likely imposition on future generations) with a large debt, and the latter runs the risk of causing too much inflation; the larger the debt, the more risk that it'll be called in/paid off too quickly and create too much inflation.
1> We are basically borrowing money for free, interest rates are close to inflation :
"A combination of unusual and unsustainable forces has pushed the cost of borrowing as low as it has ever been, so low that many investors effectively are paying to lend money to the government.
Investors buying five-year federal debt are accepting such low interest rates that inflation is on pace to reduce the value of their investments by more than 1 percent each year. Yet demand for United States Treasuries remains much greater than the supply."
A U.S. Boon in Low-Cost Borrowing - NYTimes.com
Granted, we won't be able to borrow for free forever, but debt can also be bought by the federal government, which then pays interest to itself- that accounts for maybe $5 trillion of our debt.
2> It is possible that interest rates will go up, but why would they ? The government can set the rate, and someone may elect to buy or not buy the bond. Generally, they have to raise interest rates when investors lose confidence in the bonds. This is one of the reasons that it is believed the strong military of the US is of great benefit to those who heavily invest in the US- it serves as a powerful stability guarantee.
But i digress. We buy a lot of our own bonds. That adds money to the supply and keeps interest rates down.
Forbes Welcome
3> Paying down debt either requires taking money out of the private sector (taxation) or taking out more debt. We've been borrowing and spending quite a bit, yet we haven't seen much inflation. There is an explanation for this- inflation doesn't necessarily occur when the government creates money. If the created money leads to production that would otherwise not have occurred, then the created money may not lead to inflation.
Said another way, if our borrowings become money well-spent, they don't hurt us in any meaningful way. As long as the economy continues to grow, we can continue to borrow. The question may be "how much," but i think it's clear that we aren't suffering from inflation. And i think that, even if we do have more inflation, that's not the end of the world.
