I think most of us who are deficit hawks want to seriously slash spending but there's very little that will be politically tolerated at the moment, especially with the public reaction in Greece, so you sort have have to wait for the house to be on fire not just smoking. Most of us don't want to raise taxes because that can depress growth, and the only tax increases that will be tolerated are on the upper-middle to wealthy, which only further exacerbates the core problem that most people don't mind recklessly spending other people's money, or you raise corporate taxes and people just magically think that doesn't just pass on to them at the stores. I'd suggest sending everybody a monthly line by line bill, theirs and the average per capita cost, but people wouldn't read it with out some direct incentive (like questions at the end and a fine for wrong answers or forfeiture of the vote to opt out) which would probably be against the 24th amendment. Somehow we have to find a way to start making people see the real cost, many might vote the fool anyway, but hopefully less people would favor "Gimme, gimme, gimme"