If you had time to read the first post in this thread you may recall that a point made was that so long as there is economic growth we should expect the "National Debt" to rise. Therefore rather than being concerned about the Debt rising --- something would be amiss if it didn't --- we should pay attention to the rate of rise relative to the rate of rise in some measure of economic growth, but is it just the U.S economy that needs to be considered? I think this may be a more difficult problem than it may seem because of the Dollar's reserve status and the demand for "debt" that the Dollar's status creates.
Interest rates are way to high for $32 trillion debt. Do we even have a viable economy? Without the flood of money printing the economy would be a corpse.
Simply put, your profit margin is 1%, your cost of capital is 5%, your customers are finding a better product.
Economic indicators show the U.S. economy is presently strong. So at least up to now it is, to use your word, quite "viable". If we assume this is true, what would this suggest to you about the need for money in the economy?
Printing (and printing and ...) to avoid economic collapse is like giving Narcan to opioid OD victims, only for many of them to OD again and again in the future.
Perhaps it would make sense to contrast Venezuela with the U.S. Both countries print. But Venezuela is collapsing because they are printing --- maybe we are "helping" them collapse. The U.S. is also printing, but not collapsing. What's the critical difference. It is the size and breadth of our economy compared to Venezuela's and our dollars status as the reserve currency. Economists might describe the difference saying, "the U.S. has great sovereignty over its money whereas Venezuela does not." The practical way this plays out is that U.S. money is much in demand whereas Venezuelan money is not. That of course means there is also high demand for our bonds. This allows us to convert the money we printed into a non-circulating, non-inflation-causing kind of money at very reasonable interest rates. Venezuela can't do that, they would have to pay very high interest rates to attract bond buyers or use foreign currency from trading petroleum to borrow in another countries currency. Venezuela will have real debt, whereas the U.S. has none. There is, for the United States, an alternative to printing. We could spend less, tax more, or both.. At least those folks who want low taxes, cheap labor, and little or no government are consistent in their desires. I doubt, though, they'd like the nation they want to create. When they park their Maserati they may be afraid to get out. It won't be a serious problem for them. They can always escape to their condo in Monaco.
To use the junkie analogy again. They are say no problem, they can stop whenever they want. They just don't want ATM. But everyone knows they can't stop. At least not without major help. The U.S. can't either without major help from its debt holders. That is the problem I see and don't like one bit.
I certainly agree that once we form a habit of doing something that doesn't serve our best interests it is hard to change. I'm not sure how are debt holders can help us anymore than they already are. If they dump treasuries, that will not help! They are very unlikely to do this as their interests are best served by supporting the dollar. There is plenty of demand for Treasuries at present. The Dollar is still considered one of the safest most stable currencies, and it's reserve status creates a lot of demand for Treasuries. Congress could go a long way toward reducing the rate of debt growth by going back to reasonably progressive tax rates. Under Reagan all the upper brackets were compressed down into one low, upper bracket. That caused a monumental deficit, so some of that tax cut was undone immediately before Reagan was gone, and more has been undone since. But we never came close to the old brackets which worked pretty well.