At the end of WWII we didn’t have Medicare, SS had only been paying out for about 5 years and over 41% of the citizens were not on some kind of govt assistance. There were no credit cards so most people had very little personal debt. Our manufacturing base is not close to what it used to be.
We could balance the budget and payoff our debt but the austerity package would never be accepted by a large segment of the voting public. The legislators don’t have the backbone to do it. Its not going to happen. First we have to have the crash and then we will recover over time.
There was a huge recession at the end of WW2. The economy contracted by 17%. However, the private sector began to rebuild as millions of servicemen moved into the workforce. We helped our European allies rebuild with Marshall Plan. We had 3 budget surpluses in 1947, 1948 and 1949. After that, the economy grew faster than the national debt. By 1970 the national debt was only 37% of GDP. We can so the same thing again that we did in the past. Grow the economy and keep spending low levels.