I think a lot of people have an excessive fear of government debt, especially given how low interest rates are nowadays. Countries (including the US) should be borrowing more to stimulate their COVID-afflicted economies.

Putting that aside, a common trick used in countries like Australia and the UK is to keep big projects off the government's balance sheet through public-private partnerships – private corporations do most of the borrowing, not the government, and end up owning the infrastructure (often under some deal where it reverts to government ownership in 50 or 100 years time). But I get the impression that approach is far less common in the US. (Despite the fact that it is the more capitalist/free-market approach – allow private investors to own public infrastructure – and the US is generally thought of as a more capitalist/free-market country than the UK or Australia are.)

Public-private partnerships are often criticised as being inferior to government borrowing, due to higher private sector borrowing costs, and I agree with that criticism. But, even though I think it is best to build with government borrowing, if one has a government debt allergy preventing that, then building with private borrowing seems better than not building at all.