Not to get too political about it, I think eventually things will right itself, but some people will fall off the table as a result due to vanishing retirement, reduced income, lowered standard of living. In other word, if you look at how the European lives in the last 10 years, that's how the US will look like in the long term.
I don't think recession debt is that big of an issue (in the long term) because a huge amount of it is due to reduced revenue when a lot of people lost their jobs or companies losing money. When things turn around and the tax increase, things will get paid off to keep inflation and US dollar in check. That happened in the mid 90s, and IMO it could happen.
The bigger problem I think is that the way things goes we are not going to be the world standard currency for much longer if Asia's growth is stabilized and not use US dollar as their national reserve. Once a few more giants stand up, people would expect us to be more disciplined, instead of trusting us to be the safe haven from their own countries' hyper inflated currency.