In ~2010, debt financing was incredibly cheap, so if the USA was able to take out debt at that time and use it for productive economic growth that paid more than the financing cost, it would have been a good investment.
The problem in my eyes isn't really that the USA took on debt when it was cheap, the problem was that:
1. it took out so much debt that now as those debts mature, they can't be paid off without taking on newer, much more expensive debts (and instead of treating that borrowing behaviour as temporary/uncertain, the government learned to treat it as a integral part of its budget).
2. the investments the USA made with that debt might not have been very smart investments. There's a huge amount of crumbling infrastructure in the USA that should have been prime targets for replacement in the era of low-cost debt, that are now going to be incredibly painful to maintain or replace, and aren't really optional. Yes, the USA did invest in a lot of things that boosted the GDP, but it's not really clear (to me at least) that the increase of economic activity was particularly productive, useful, or sustainable.
Sure, debt can be good idea when it's carefully considered and planned by a well run organization, preferably one where its leaders have their personal finances highly dependent on its success.
However the chronic issue almost every government has is that the government is neither well run, nor do the people running it suffer any financial consequences when things go poorly.
I don't have a realistic fix for this, of course, but it's fun to imagine annual performance reviews for politicians with guillotines available to HR.
Your examples seem to be saying a “good debt” situation would involve the government being wise in playing the market.
It’s arguable if the government should be playing the markets to any extent at all.
To my knowledge the purpose of (American) government involves the wise use of collecting and spending. It seems to always get in trouble when going after the carrot of investing.
To the Biden administration’s credit, it did pass the Inflation Reduction Act. Hopefully the next administration will let at least some of the Trump administration’s tax cuts expire and raise revenue in other areas.