My opinion?
First we have to recognize that it took our nation many decades to build up this deficit/debt. To expect a workable plan to get rid of it in a few years is sophistry. There is no way we can economically withstand any drastic plan to eliminate the deficit quickly. It may be a case where the cure is worse than the disease.
Any solution will have to be a multi-generational solution and honestly that ain't gonna happen in today's sound-byte political environment.. but we can dream.
First step should be to freeze government spending.
All government spending. Yes that means the military too. This will drastically slow down the growth of our deficit. It will still grow due to interest/SS/Medicare but it is a first step (if you find yourself in a deficit, first stop spending more money).
Let this solution cook for a few years to see how it works and to let the economy adapt to this change. During this time limits on SS and medicare can be slowly grandfathered in so that the current old guys who were relying on it can get it, while the younger guys who still have time to set up their own programs can do so (clearly the devil will be in the details). But the objective has to be to ween the citizens away from the "old" SS and Medicare system as we simply can't afford it in its present state. I don't think the solution is to eliminate these programs, but they do need to change.... but slowly.
Then after a few years we can cut more to the extent that even counting interest our deficit ceases to grow. Let that solution cook for a few years for the economy to adapt.
Then, and only then can we start cutting programs to start reducing the deficit and as the years pass we can continue to adjust these programs under a balanced budget schema.
But we can't do it all at once. It took us decades to screw up, it will take decades to fix. But the first step needs to be to stop increasing the spending.
We also need to recognize that any corrective action will hurt. We need to spread the hurt. Yes that means that in some cases a person who did not do anything wrong will be paying for those who did. We have to suck it up for the betterment of our country.
But like I posted before, this is strictly a fantasy. We can't get politicians to give a crap about our country even within their term, no less multi-generational. Politicians simply don't care enough.
