Yay for Debt!

So I was watching the NBC Nightly News last night, and a story came on about our national debt. Apparently, right now the only thing keeping our head above water financially is the national debt, which is currently at $12 trillion dollars. (According to author Bill Bryson, if you were sorting one $1 bill every second without stopping, it would take 3,094 years to count out $1 trillion. Now multiply that by 12.) Also, the report said that if our national debt keeps growing at this rate, by 2040, 45% of every individual's incomes would need to be taken through taxes to keep the debt from expanding even more. So...is the national debt good? Yes. Is it bad? Yes. Hmmm...weird.