Ok so I’m calling bluff on the trillion dollar deficits hyperbole. This is a cudgel argument used without any deep exposition against $subjectiveBadIdea.

We live in a financial world where banks magic up funds all the time and nobody bats an eye, but governments can’t do it for projects?

Further, imagine trying to calculate the added GDP for all of a nations infrastructure over the years its existed and been in use for free or near free. Yes, there are taxes levied in fuel transactions, but clearly that’s not the entire value added.

Edit-Deficit hawks are really arguing against deficits in the secret search for forcing the economy to be zero-sum and punitive. Governments job is to create and reinforce property rights, amongst other things. They do that by creating a resource allocation system - thankfully capitalistic for the most part. Capitalism only exists at this scale with currency - that only the government authenticates. Etc etc. The governments debt is a reflection and indicator of the value its left in the market. Back to nap time.