End of America is a bit melodramatic, but having debt for non-return-on-investment spending is never ever a good thing, and when your debt load is three times your annual income, that is never a good thing either. Having this debt means, if we ever hit a really bad patch, the debt will act as an accelerator to make it a much worse patch than otherwise. We want that fixed BEFORE said bad patch ever happens, and that's what we're all yelling about. I wouldn't mind if the "superpower" title goes away. It's really already been in China's court for a few years now anyway, and if we lost that title officially, maybe we could finally stop minding other people's business, and take care of our own instead...
