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>>>Yup. I would hold the line on raising the debt ceiling. NO COMPROMISE!!

To avoid raising the debt ceiling, we would have to have a balaced budget. Given the forecast for the FY11 budget deficit, we need to find $1.3T in savings before we hit the current debt ceiling.

Discretionary spending in FY 2010 was $1.39T, or 38% of total spending. More than half ($844B) was security spending, which includes the Department of Defense, overseas contingency programs and Homeland Security.

So if you close down all the discretionary gov agencies immediately you find about $500B in savings. There is $135B in stimulus spending for FY11 that could be cut.

From there you are going to have to make significant cuts in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. That would mean actual cuts in benefits to current receipients, not pushing up the retirement age for 20 year olds.

If the nation is bankrupt, we have no choice.

But of course, step one in our recovery act should include impeaching Obama for gross incompetence.

Sorry, let me refine my prior post, #27.

There are other mandatory programs that we could cut besides Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. We can find $619B in savings if we immediately cut these programs: Food Stamps, Unemployment Compensation, Child Nutrition and Tax Credits, Supplemental Security for the Disabled and Student Loans.

So with $500B in discretioary spending, $135B in stimulus, and another $620B above, we can get close to balanced.