If you want to REALLY shrink the deficit by recouping costs from the left go after the government union scams. How often have unions demanded funds be given as pay and current benefit raises for government workers, knowing there wouldn't be anything left to fund their lucrative defined benefit pensions, knowing those pensions - further enlarged by current raises - were only backed by promises to scalp future taxpayers and by the - criminally for the private sector - flawed accounting that left such promises off budgets? Prove that both sides knew those promised virtual pensions were unrealistic. Break the contracts and replace them with something affordable. Save several states from bankruptcy. If you can't break the contracts without bankruptcy and want to avoid that just slap a "windfall pensions" tax on them sufficient to balance your budgets. All that would take is one converted Rat Ways and Means staffer - they know how to tax anything - to write your windfall.