We've been in debt since 1835, sometimes more sometimes less, sometimes mostly to others sometimes mostly to ourselves, and yet still managed to not only survive, but thrive. And we're not alone in this practice. So it may be obscene in a purely ideological, aka theoretical sense, but practically speaking it clearly works.
It works for a while, and in moderation. The last 10 years have neither been moderate nor sustainable in trajectory. Add to that a Fed chairman whose only command is CTRL-P and you have a recipe for disaster. But by all means, Nero. Fiddle on.
Spain, Italy and Portugal aside, can you explain why it didn't "work" for Greece, Argentina, Iceland and the litany of other sovereign defaulters in the past 100 years? That's sorta relevant. That line of thinking (it can never happen here) is really the definition of the normalcy bias.
All empires eventually end for one reason or another. The fact we've been doing something far more often and longer than we should doesn't guarantee it will continue to work in the future. Every bubble bursts eventually.
Greece, Iceland, and the US all went through the same crisis, but entered it differently and had different options for dealing with the contraction. Greece ballooned (and spent massively) thanks to huge capital inflows. Same with Iceland. Not so the US, our own collateral chains enabled the ballooning. When the flows were cut off, Greece could not manipulate its own currency because it doesn't have one. The US and Iceland do have their own currencies and were able to manipulate, Iceland very much did so. Argentina is also a different beast. It's debt was mostly foreign and its currency was pegged to ours, which is basically not having their own currency. All these countries are still around, by the way. There are no stories of mass starvation, or mass deaths to exposure, to tell about any of them.
Life in Greece is anything but acceptable right now. And Iceland said "to hell with the debt" and did not pay it back. Which way will the US go?
I agree about Greece, but again, they can't devalue their currency and make themselves competitive vis a vis their trade partners. Kraut investors got a haircut in Iceland, yes. That's gambling. We have a number of ways we can go. Currency manipulation. Export initiatives (thank you President Obama), selling assets, and, of course, changing laws behind non-discretionary spending. We have a lot of room to maneuver.