http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.htmlOk, it's not easy, but I did it with 32% tax increases and 68% spending cuts. I found it most interesting that all the things politicians talk about (cutting "earmarks," cutting foreign aid, reducing/eliminating farm subsidies, reducing the federal workforce, medical malpractice reform, etc.) really are a drop in the bucket compared to the BIG cuts and revenue increases such as raising the Medicare and Social Security eligibility ages, and returning the estate tax and investment tax rates to what they were under Pres. Clinton in the 90s. Of course no one from either party really wants to touch the sacred cows of those kind of entitlement programs in this country
There's really no sense in going after the (relatively) small budget items like earmarks when you can start cutting huge chunks of the budget from defense and Medicare/Social Security. It's like in college when your professor only wanted a five-page paper but you wrote eight pages; you cut your paper down to size by cutting out whole paragraphs and whole ideas at first before you messed with your font size and margins.
Here's what I did
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html?choices=23t9n870I chose cut pay of federal workers, cut some military items (saves a lot in the short-term), reduce troops in Iraq/Afghanistan to 30,000, increase Medicare and Social Security ages to 68, cap Medicare growth (the biggest long-term budget cut, I think), reduce Social Security benefits for people with higher incomes, pres. Obama's estate tax proposal, subject incomes over 106k to payroll tax, tax incomes over $1 million, and the Bowles-Simpson plan for closing tax loopholes. I left everything else alone, so no carbon tax/NST and I left the Bush-era tax cuts for all taxpayers.