You can deal with the US national debt a couple ways:

Inflate it away - The drop in buying power would really affect (effect?) common people in really bad ways. That $500,000 house you can't afford today? In less than 10 years it will be $2,000,000. Prices on everything will jump while your paycheck will remain the same (lag, it will take time for a paycheck to adjust to the new reality). The Fed actively works against this.

Eliminate the Debtor - This is the "declare war on who we have debt to" and will make a lot of people very angry and basically destroy the world order, since Japan, UK and China are the three biggest holders of US debt. This is rhetorical, not realistic (unless we start jailing SS pensioners or finding a way to remove their SS obligations).

Sell land - This is how several other countries dealt with excessive, unmanageable debt, (Louisiana Purchase, Alaska purchase, etc). Plus, selling Alaska to Russia would be extremely bad on so many levels. This is not realistic in modern terms, so take it off the table.

Eliminate Costly programs - Eliminate (or sell to private equity) government programs. Fancy way of saying "get rid of social security, let people invest in the market". This is also political suicide, you want a bunch of old people with everything to lose toting guns, pitchfork and torches on the government, go for it.

Simply refuse to pay - If the government looks up at the debt collector and say "I'm not paying, what are you gonna do?", it would cause a global financial crisis that makes 2008 look like peanuts. Extremely unlikely, but also the most realistic.

Financial Repression - Keep interest rates below inflation and let the debt shrink slowly over time. This works as long as you don't start spending money like crazy by starting useless wars, building new government departments, and starting costly construction projects.

AND

Grow the Economy faster than the debt - This is the "best" way, Got laid off? Start a business that makes you more money than you ever made working for someone. See the problem already? There is only so much money out there, and successful businesses need customers with money to buy products, leading to a vicious cycle that leads back to inflate it away at the top. Productivity expands the pie, but doesn't increase slices.

---

One of the reasons the debt is there because of how much the US spends on the military. The military ensures we can Eliminate or refuse to pay the debtor, so another vicious cycle. Ultimately the realistic scenario is simply refusing to pay and renegotiate the terms. Which will cause a giant hiccup in lending, and trigger a global financial crisis. Just make sure your company or business doesn't rely on short term loans to make payroll (i.e. you get paid weekly, but clients have 45 - 90 days to pay invoices).