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One of the reasons the Western Roman Empire collapsed was growing economic inequality. Family farmers could not compete with large estates worked by slaves. When family farmers lost their farms they moved to the cities and became a propertyless and largely unskilled proletariat. (The word "proletariat" was originated by the Romans.) When the Western Roman Empire was invaded by German tribes the proletarians had nothing to fight for and little incentive to defend the Empire.
By contrast, in the Eastern Roman Empire the government intervened in the economy in order to preserve the family farms in return for military service by the farmers' sons. The Eastern Roman Empire, which became known as the Byzantine Empire, survived for a thousand years after the Western Roman Empire fell.
America's national debt only became a national problem during the Reagan administration, when the GOP adopted the dogma that it is always a good idea to cut taxes for the rich, and never a good idea to raise them. Now Republican politicians are using the rise in the national debt, for which they are responsible, as an excuse to cut domestic spending programs they have never liked, but which they know are popular with the voters.
Don't forget rampant corruption and self-dealing which was largely the root of that; the same stuff that's going on today.