re: You could have spent 1 million dollars every single day since the year 1 AD..

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The national debt is a pointless measure. Who cares what it is? It’s not like anyone can do anything to demand payment?

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We pay around $800 billion dollars each year on the interest owed for the national debt. To put that into perspective, we are nearly paying more for our debt interest payments than we do for our department of war.

If the government decided to stop paying interest payments, our credit reputation would tank, causing numerous markets to crash. The treasury market in particular relies on the US government's history of never defaulting on interest payments. Long term impacts would include pensions and social security, a banking crisis (loans, savings, insurance, etc), and the end of the dollar as the global currency.

It bothers me when people think we just "print more money" to avoid paying the debt. Printing money increases the debt, which increases interest payments. When interest payments grow too high, we have to make cuts in other areas. Not to mention inflation that occurs with printing money, which causes more pressure on tax payers to make ends meet, which makes it more difficult for the economy to thrive if they are paying higher taxes to pay interest on the newly printed money.

Right now, we are still the world's largest economy by far and ensure global hegemony with our military. You're right that it's not THAT big of a deal in the short term, but the long term consequences are inevitable. We will eventually accrue too much debt, struggle to make interest payments, and actually feel the consequences.