It’s highly inappropriate to use the term “Ponzi scheme,” because the US economy is not predicated upon deception. Also, the typical con artist is not backed by the full faith and credit of the United States. (I’m assuming you’re American, but the idea works fine in Euros.)
Actually, borrowing to finance government can go on forever. There has never been a time when the US did not issue bonds; in fact, I don’t know of any nation that hasn’t issued government bonds, at least since Babylon. There could be exceptions I’m not aware of, but not many.
In fact, if the US stopped issuing bonds, it would throw the world economy into a whole new kind of chaos. US Treasury instruments are considered the safest investment in the world - far from a Ponzi scheme - and millions of contracts around the world demand escrow funds be held in US Treasury bonds or the like.
Almost all of the mess the world economy is in right now is due to austerity, and every economist in the world is aware of this - with the exception of a tiny minority on the right-wing fringe. Cutting spending even further would only throw the nation and the world deeper into recession, or full-blown depression.
I won’t even go into the painful effects austerity has on the lives of most people. Balanced-budget fans are never interested in “anecdotal evidence.” Or any other kind, for that matter.
EDIT: Wait a second, weren’t we discussing the Japanese national debt? I’m not Japanese!
