When has a major country ever really paid down its debt? The debt never gets smaller. At best the economy grows faster than the debt so that the debt to GDP ratio improves.
The problem right now is that we're spending too much money on the wrong things (military spending and entitlements) and it's crowding the things out of the budget that actually help the economy, like basic research and education. Imagine for one second where we would be if we swapped the budget lines for the DoD and scientific research.
If you visit http://www.budget.gov.au/2012-13/content/bp1/html/bp1_bst10-... and scroll down to Table 3, you will see that in the year 2008-2009, the Australian Federal Government had a net debt amounting to -0.1% of GDP. Net debt being negative means the government had net assets - any debt could have been paid off with cash on hand.
Of course, you can try to argue Australia isn't a major country...
You're talking about the deficit, not the debt. You can hardly read what I wrote as saying that no major country has ever run a budget surplus for a year or two. Australia continues to have some AU$200+B in outstanding treasury securities. (http://www.aofm.gov.au/content/borrowing/commonwealth/Monthl...)
The problem right now is that we're spending too much money on the wrong things (military spending and entitlements) and it's crowding the things out of the budget that actually help the economy, like basic research and education. Imagine for one second where we would be if we swapped the budget lines for the DoD and scientific research.