In recent history, the government typically borrows about a trillion dollars a year to stay functional. That's every year. It's like making 35k a year and racking up 10k a year on your credit card, year after year, to the point you now owe 290k. The only way the government functions is when congress approves an increase in the debt limit (how much can we borrow) and the credit card company (fed) raises your limit.

Realistically, it's an unpayable debt, unless the government goes bare bones and not fulfill its promises of social security, medicare, pensions, etc. It's political suicide to cut benefits, so they raise the debt ceiling every time they hit it and that's how we got here.

But going bare bones isn't a long term solution either, cause the dollar is a debt based system, meaning it's borrowed into existence and has to be paid back with interest, which if you look at the big picture, is an impossible thing to do. If all debts are paid, there is no money. This means that the only way society can function is if more debt is created into existence every year. For the past few decades, the national debt has doubled around every 8-10 years, but accelerating.