The deficit problem is nearly insurmountable. The solution is of course for the government to spend less than it takes in.
1. As far as taking in more, the fellows who promise to raise tax rates are seldom elected. Moreover, there is lots of empirical evidence that raising income tax rates is counterproductive and ends up decreasing the amount of taxes collected. Quite simply, wage earners choose leisure instead of hard work for which they're not being paid as much and the size of the economic pie shrinks. Moreover, there's no solution in just taxing the "rich" more heavily anyway. There's not enough money there. Taxes
must inevitably take a bite out of the middle class because that's where the bulk of the earnings are located.
Raising consumption taxes such as sales taxes is also very unpopular at the polls because the claim that someone else, i.e. the rich, will be hit by the increase cannot be made. The only thing that might be palatable is raising "sin" taxes on alcohol, tobacco, and perhaps gasoline and ammunition shortly after an election.
2. Similarly, it's very tough to cut spending. Iraq is a tar baby and the only thing anyone can do is blame the fellows who got the U.S. into the mess. But there's no end in sight.
Secondly, every politician likes to talk about eliminating waste but that's just a drop in the bucket. Program cuts are necessary for any meaningful reduction in spending, but voters know therefore that their "entitlements" will shrink and they're opposed to that. Everybody wants somebody else's entitlements cut, and not those where they're feasting at the trough of government largesse (or at least getting a piece of the action) themselves.
Ending the egregiously expensive "war on drugs" would help though. That way the government could get a piece of the revenues as opposed to the bulk of the expenses (enforcement costs).
And tax churches/religions. They're businesses like any other. That way other taxes on more productive individuals might be kept down. Of course every preacher would scream bloody murder from his pulpt and urge his flock to vote against the devil worshippers who would tax God and his hard working servants on earth....
Finally, making it illegal for Congressmen to attach earmarks for their own pet projects, i.e. pork barrels, to unrelated bills would help a lot - but none of the Congressmen would vote for the measure. That's democracy for you.
Re: US National Debt Clock 
Re: US National Debt Clock 
Linear Mode
