“surely economic recovery is being held back by the unchecked debt” – the recovery is being held back by lack of demand. Interest rates remain near zero. Major corporations are sitting on mountains of cash. I’ve been in any number of meetings with $1b+ companies in the last two years, and the national debt has never come up in a business plan. It’s easy to take pot shots at “spendthrift” consumers, but there is no investment without the prospect of consumption, and domestic demand is crippled.

“so they ship their capital to nations with better long-term prospects” – A big chunk of our debt is financed externally, meaning other countries are actually shipping their capital to us, and bidding up our bonds in the process.

The key metric should be debt-to-GDP. The numbers mean nothing by themselves.

I will add that I was a summer intern in Washington in 2008, working in a financial institution trade association right before the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac “bailouts,” and heard, in person, Barney Frank casually say that the bailout would come with a raise in the debt ceiling, as though that sort of thing should just be automatic and routine. Keep in mind that this was July 2008, so the (correct) assumption was that President Bush would casually sign off on that action as though it were automatic and routine. At least today, the matter has been up for serious public debate – in 2008 I suspect most Americans were totally unaware of the debt ceiling at all.