Not only is it the only fair to do (why should I give something you want in exchange for a politicians promise to give me what I want some day, maybe?) it's the only reasonable thing to do. Neither tax hikes nor spending cuts will solve the problem by themselves, and the size of each dictates how large the other must be to reverse the trend of ever higher debt. The road of "tax hikes with promised spending cuts that never occur" isn't exactly well traveled in the US; we simply don't raise federal taxes often enough for that to be possible. Unfortunately, tempting as it is to just blame spineless pandering politicians (mainly because the so often spinelessly pander), the political reality is that a majority of them don't want to cut spending or raise taxes because polls have consistently shown that a majority of the US PUBLIC doesn't want either of those things. A clear majority of America insists we cut the debt without raising taxes or cutting spending, so suggesting we accomplish the first tax by either means (let alone both) is tantamount to political suicide. Still and so, whatever people like me thought about Clinton stealing Tommy Thompsons welfare reform policy, the fact remains that the only time in my life that we've reduced the federal debt is when we cut spending AND raised taxes at the same time. That dual approach may not be politically sound, but nothing else is mathematically sound, which, of course, is the real problem: No politician can be a statesman without winning an election.