America’s external debt is over $17,910,000,000,000 and rising. Wouldn’t everyone love to just start again from scratch?

That debt is the result of other countries trading real goods and labor for US dollars. It is not simply "borrowing" in the common use of the term. It is all represented in dollars that reside in spreadsheets at the Fed and in Treasury instruments only denominated in dollars.

Since FDR ended the domestic convertibility of US dollars to gold to allow us to recover from the great depression it is no problem for Congress, whether it admits it or not, to service that debt with the ability to create dollars on demand. No one's taxes need to be raised or programs need to be cut to do so. Even the bonds that denominate most of that debt aren't actually a funding mechanism for the spending of Congress, so it is immaterial to the economy here.