Take all the profits of the 1% and?

You operate under the mistaken assumption that there are expenses that cannot be cut. We need to pare back entitlements to a point where they can be funded and handled properly. That is not rocket science. Individuals do it every day, or they file for bankruptcy.

I am in favor of phasing out Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, HUD, Welfare, Department of Education, just for starters.

I think your first sentence has a typo : it should read "Take all the profits of those making over 250K and you can't make a dent in the debt."

Social Security is a beast of its own. I work with Fix Social Security Now. We provide one-stop shopping for people interested in Social Security reform at www.FixSSNow.Org. We will tell you about all of the solutions rather than pushing just one. The system has structural problems. Instead of fixing the problems, DC wants us to pay for them.

The country's problem is debt. It isn't just the government but private debt as well. All it does is shifts demand over time. So we buy things today that we would normally wait to consume. It just pulls demand forward, which is great until you get to future where demand is depleted. That is where we are today. The govt seems to want treat the symptoms and feed the disease.

In 2001, the CBO projected that the national debt could be entirely paid off by the end of that decade.

Then came Bush. He instituted tax cuts that mostly benefited the rich and started spending, including on an unnecessary and very expensive war in Iraq.

The only two presidents in the last 50 years to have balanced budgets were Clinton and LBJ -- both Democrats.

Clinton raised taxes, without a single Republican vote in Congress, and cut spending.

We know what to do because we've done it before. The problem right now is recovery from the adverse effects of the Great Recession and the economic meltdown of 2008. Cuts will slow recovery.

Balancing the budget is not a great mystery but Republicans are being unrealistic and have thrown every obstacle in the way of addressing our very real problems.

All of the income of the top 1% is enough to pay for all the federal government programs including SS and Medicare. This is not a good idea, but it give you some idea how much of countries income they get.

The american people don't want to face it but taxes and a austerity program is the only thing that will get us out of the hole we"re in.Cutting programs alone won't do it.Read my lips,no new taxes Bush found that out.When government spending gets out of hand,the first thing you do is plug the leak and raise taxes to restore the balance to the budget.The problem right now is our tax code.It's not fair the way its written.It's full of loopholes for the wealthy and that's what most americans are upset about.We don't care if you make millions,just pay your fair share of taxes just as we do.I don't buy into the cons idea of if we don't give business a break on their taxes they can"t promote jobs.The tax field isn't a level field and until we correct it,we"ll never move forward.

I don't believe you. Those things you listed WOULD help pay off the debt, no matter how you look at it. It probably wouldn't pay off ALL the U.S. debt, but the point is to begin paying it off. Just because we can't pay off the ENTIRE debt in one year, doesn't mean we shouldn't spend less to start paying it off. Giving up on the idea of paying it off gets us nowhere.

You haven't been paying attention, have you? There is a solution, it has been presented the the republicans and voted down by the democrats. It's called the balanced budget amendment.

The Obama administration hasn't even submitted A BUDGET, much less a balanced one.

The rich need to pay their fair share, we need to disband the military, and sell our wepons to pay off the debt.