Most Americans would love it if their debt was just 17% of their yearly salary. The debt is nothing to be afraid of at 17% of GDP,The correct "salary" analogy would be to compare the National Debt to federal revenues, not GDP.
If you want to compare to GDP, one would have to add all forms of private debt to the National Debt. In other words, the sum total of corporate debt, consumer debt, home mortgages, debts incurred by state and local government, etc. etc.
I'm not sure where to find that statistic.
You are right the budget is 2.1 Trillion but our debt payment is still at 17% of the yearly budget. My fault, I'm not an economist who studys the American economy but it is on the back of your tax booklet that we are paying 17% of all government revenues to pay the debt interest. So it changes nothing in my arguement that we are only paying 17% of yearly revenues to service the countrys deficit.