Comment by smaddox

Private debt dwarfed public debt until very recently, and it's still significany higher: https://braveneweurope.com/steve-keen-what-is-the-role-of-pu...

Also GDP is a terrible proxy for economic prosperity. A broken window adds to GDP, but subtracts from prosperity. If we had a better proxy for prosperity, it would be easier to see if government debt was actually net negative or net positive effect. As is, all arguments one way or the other are speculation and ideology.