[real_change]

Am I anywhere near close? Am I right in thinking that everyone needs to suck up their pride and compromise? Taxes need to go up a little bit, and some spending has to be cut as well. Is it rational to think that taxes need to go up, spending needs to be cut AND the ceiling needs to be raised?

Doesn't everyone lose OR everyone win that way? As long as everyone has a mutual effect, isn't that enough? I am so confused, I need to learn more about this stuff, lol.

Rational yes, but necessary, no.

In fact, the budget can be balanced and during this decade without either tax hikes or spending cuts. A simple cap on non-entitlement spending would balance the budget in 2017, without raising taxes one dime. Allowing a 1% rate of growth, would balance it in 2019. 2% would be in 2021. Yet Obama projects WITH the bush tax cuts expiring, his budget will produce nearly a trillion a year in the same timeframe as mentioned above. Now, whats the problem? I think its clear.

Raising the debt limit is unavoidable. But in doing so, it must be tied to a larger plan.

-Stop all stimulus spending from the 2009 stimulus bill.
-Return spending back to FY 2008.
-1 year tax holiday on payroll taxes for employee and employer.
-End the wars in Libya, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
-Assemble a blue-ribbon panel to study every dime in the budget, program that it funds, and regulation that exists. Force congress to vote up or down on its recommendations.
-Reform Medicare and Social Security to give people more power over their future, and provide solvency indefinetely.
-Suspend all foreign aid immediately and review relations across the world.
-Move towards the FairTax, and abolish the IRS.

Just my two cents.