The shear numbers are of course increasing. But that has more to do with currency inflation than actually borrowing more money. Every major country on the planet has some debt, just like most people in this world have some financial debt. Its life.
IMO what matters is not so much the total debt a country has, but the ratio of debt to GDP. That gives you an idea of how easily a country would actually be able to pay off its debt. In the case of the US, the ratio is estimated between 104-105% which is to say its essentially a 1:1 ratio. The GDP in the United States is about equal to its debt. That's pretty common and not really all that alarming. The ratio for the entire eurozone is about ~94% with some countries well above 100%
Is debt high in the US? Yes certainly. But is it so bad that we need to stop everything and fix it now? No its not. By comparison, Greece who almost defaulted earlier this year, is somewhere north of 180%
http://www.debtclocks.eu/Taking a snapshot at any individual moment isn't as useful as identifying the overall trend. In the past 15 years, debt:GDP ratio has risen 147% (from under 45% to over 110%).
GDP Debt (FYE) Ratio
Dec 31, 2014 16.15 trillion 17.82 110.34%
Dec 31, 2013 15.76 trillion 16.74 106.22%
Dec 31, 2012 15.38 trillion 16.07 104.48%
Dec 31, 2011 15.19 trillion 14.79 97.37%
Dec 31, 2010 14.94 trillion 13.56 90.76%
Dec 31, 2009 14.54 trillion 11.91 81.91%
Dec 31, 2008 14.58 trillion 10.02 68.72%
Dec 31, 2007 14.99 trillion 9.01 60.11%
Dec 31, 2006 14.72 trillion 8.51 57.81%
Dec 31, 2005 14.37 trillion 7.93 55.18%
Dec 31, 2004 13.95 trillion 7.38 52.90%
Dec 31, 2003 13.53 trillion 6.79 50.18%
Dec 31, 2002 12.96 trillion 6.23 48.08%
Dec 31, 2001 12.71 trillion 5.81 45.71%
Dec 31, 2000 12.68 trillion 5.68 44.79%
Is a 110% ratio problematic? That single data point alone doesn't say. But in light of the trend (we were under 45% 15 years ago) and with medicare and social security expenses about to start exploding with the retiring baby boomers, yeah, it absolutely is crucial we address this now. We haven't at all over the last 15 years, despite knowing this looming crisis was coming, and we did nothing. We don't have the luxury of not acting anymore, or hoping that we can
economic-growth our way out of this. We can't.