The USA has the equivalent of $1 million in debt and a salary of $170k/year

[americanpegasus]

Also, our yearly expenses are about $194k.  From /u/elitestasshole over on Reddit comes a scary tale:  
  

Firstly, these Treasurys are the responsibility of the US government, not the whole USA. The US government, in theory, has the power to tax its citizens to pay back its debt. But in practice it can't tax everything from you, and the government doesn't own what every american owns. Case in point: the Greek government is broke and has defaulted, despite their citizens still owning trillions in asset.

Second, while our GDP is $16 ~$18 trillion, federal tax revenue in 2014 was only ~$3trn, or 17% of GDP. However, federal expenditure was $3.5trn in FY2014. This means that we ended up with $500bn in deficit last year. The accurate analogy would be that we have $1m in total debt ($80k owed to china), $170k in income, and $194k in expenses. Of course, I'm not saying that we should manage the national debt the same way we manage household debt. In theory, nations (and corporations) can be in debt forever as long as the debt/GDP ratio (or debt to invested capital, in the case of corporations) is stable.

Lastly, to accurately measure the impact, we should exclude Treasurys held by the Federal Reserve and governmental accounts, increasing China's holding percentage up to ~15%. Nothing too scary but certainly not insignificant. A hotly-debated, highly-influential paper by Reinhart and Rogoff (both of Harvard) argues that external debt (basically all debt - government, private and household - owed to foreign creditors) exceeding 60% of GDP could reduce the growth rate by two percentage point. External debt > 90% of GDP could result in the growth rate being reduced by half.

At ~102% to GDP, Our debt as % of GDP is way better than many european countries. But it's in no way great, given the economy is expected to grow at 2-3% a year in the long term, and the rate could rise as soon as June, according to the most recent FOMC minutes.

 
Frightened,  I posted these numbers as a concerned home owner to the personalfinance subreddit and received some wisdom from the money gurus there, starting with /u/loopy212:

"This is going to sound like generic advice, but you need to get your finances under control."

"You've been living far beyond your means for a considerable period of time. It doesn't sound like you even grasp how bad your situation is; assuming a relatively modest average interest rate of ~8%, you may not be able to repay that debt in the course of your lifetime at your current income levels."

"It's going to be painful one way or another to get this under control. Commit to it and start being logical and you might have a chance."

At least we're not paying 8% interest, but still.

And here's some more outstanding advice from /r/personalfinance:

"Bankruptcy or drastically cutting back your lifestyle to live on half your income for the next give or take 15 years while you pay down your debt. You are in a horrible financial situation, the worst I can recall to have posted here in a long time."

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[lucasjkr]

Well making up figures and applying them as if it's a homeownership situation is absurd. You know that, you said yourself that government debt isn't equivalent to household debt. But then you go ahead and ask reddits advice as if they are one and the same.

The governments expenses aren't fixed. Lots of discretionary stuff in there that could be cut if we decided that paying down the debt was of primary importance. And it's income, unfortunately, also isn't capped. AgAin, if the political will was there to pay down the debt, the government could arbitrarily raise taxes in order to accomplish that.

You and I can't just say "next year, I'd like to double my salary" but the government could, if it so chose. The fallout would be immense, so it likely wouldn't happen, but it's there. As for expenditures, it's got a lot more flexibility if we desired as well.

Additionally, U.S. Government debt is counted as among the safest assets to own throughout the world. China, Japan, banks, citizens. They all want it, even todAy when interest rates on short term debt is less than inflation. So rather than a household with a mortgage and every bank refusing to refinance, the government generally has no problem refinancing. And even when it does, briefly, and is forced to print a lot of new money, the world values that new money roughly the same as the original money, rather than devaluing it due to the inflated supply.

There are just so many differences that drawing even rough parallels between households and government is absurd, just as is asking reddit it's advice by saying you earn $150,000, have $170,000 in expenses, and owe a million on your home, what should you do? Also say you can choose your salary. You can choose most of your expenses. Etc etc etc.

[johnyj]

All these are number games, and the purpose of the game is to let banks own more and more assets while governments and average people own more and more debts or fiat money. You can not see the truth by looking at most trivial part of the whole scheme(the fiscal discipline)

There is no escape from the scheme, unless people start to understand how modern money creation works, but that's too difficult for average Joe

[odolvlobo]

... A hotly-debated, highly-influential paper by Reinhart and Rogoff (both of Harvard) argues that external debt ...

The Reinhart and Rogoff paper was initially very influential, but the results were later found to be flawed due to errors in their spreadsheet. Are you citing the original results or the corrected results?

[Q7]

The whole system is actually surrounded by debts and money created out of thin air. If you look at the situation in 2007 and compared to right now, i don't see that things are getting better. The government cant just continue to increase taxes to cover the shortage or make up the debt because eventually by doing this it will actually dampen the economy and prevent growth. Economists have been predicting a collapse but given the current situation we are seeing right now, I'm actually surprised how the bubble can actually sustained for so long.

[lucasjkr]

Since we lack the political will to cut spending, the only responsible thing to do would be to raise taxes to match spending; Clinton did infact raise taxes without killing the economy. And as a side effect, once Americans are made aware of how much spending is actually required to support all the items in our budget, then they/we might become more willing to look at that budget with a critical eye. Right now, it's masked from us because we continue to borrow and live larger than our income should support...

[OROBTC]

...

As mentioned above, there are a lot of ways of looking at "the debt".  The official and most often number is around $17.3 trillion (plus or minus), this is the "national debt" and would work out to some $51,000 per man, woman and child in the USA.  Or some $120,000 per taxpayer (yuck).  Got $120,000?

The $17tn does NOT include various big-ticket items like unfunded liabilities (social security, MediCare, etc.), which would take the total to mind-numbing numbers like $70tn - $200tn + (depending on whose numbers you believe).

This debt will never be paid back legitimately.  It will be inflated away, defaulted on ("sorry, we´re not giving that COLA increase this year"), or go futher into debt -- or some combination.

In fact, this debt was never meant to be paid back...

Prepare accordingly.

[aso118]

Apart from the many differences pointed out, a homeowner has a limited earning life span during which he has to make enough money to repay the loan.
On the other hand, you can assume that the US will be around for almost ever.