Will the US Repeat Japan's Troubles?

From the NYT: "years of stimulus spending on expensive dams and roads have inflated the country’s gross public debt to twice the size of its $5 trillion economy— by far the highest debt-to-G.D.P. ratio in recent memory. Just paying the interest on its debt consumed a fifth of Japan’s budget for 2008, compared with debt payments that compose about a tenth of the United States budget. ...Japan’s rising sea of debt is the stuff of nightmares: the possibility of an eventual sovereign debt crisis, where the country would be unable to pay some holders of its bonds, or a destabilizing collapse in the value of the yen."  Note that Japan has been spending stimulus monies since the banking crisis of the early 90s.  It still has been unable to create a sustained period of economic growth since that time.  The US government debt is currently 98% of GDP, the highest level in decades, while EU member states are mandated to keep debt below 60% of GDP.