I agree with your thoughts there too, but for now we’ll have to keep taxation high by some means. We have to service and pay down the debt.
Getting rid of those employees will help considerably though, reducing deficit spending and turning things around.
I'm not sure it's possible to pay down the debt now without major pain, but certainly something that needs to be decided by the smartest people we can find.
Flanking the debt problem from both sides, as you spelled out, certainly seems the only way.