Private sector banking is modeled after the way government functions except that only the federal government can "create" money as needed to pay its obligations and fund programs in the private sector. In dual entry spreadsheet accounting every debt in one sector becomes someone's asset in another sector. The government creates debt by creating private sector assets and retires that debt by collecting those assets back via taxation.

The people, and all of their constructs, must confine their "net" economic activity to what can be "paid for/retired" by the money their government creates. If all accounts had to be settled out in the private sector tomorrow the money left in the economy would be exactly equal to government's deficit spending over its history, the national debt.

The people "earned" those assets in their commerce with their government, they don't "owe" them to anyone. To balance the federal budget would be the same as stealing the real resources the debt was meant to deploy into use in the private sector via taxation. This leaves no net gain from those resources to serve as a store of value from that commerce. The federal national debt is our "savings" accumulated in that commerce, not an encumbrance on future earnings.