I reduced the debt to 60% of GDP in 2018, and kept it at a sustainable level through 2030!

Well, not really... But I did manage to accomplish this task in a Budget Simulator created by the non-partisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. This was a very informative exercise. It allowed me to look at various proposals and see what kind of effect they would have on the projected debt through 2018. As you look through the budget, finding spending to cut and revenue to raise, you get a good sense over what will really help get us out of this debt crisis and what turns out to just be easy campaign one-liners. I would highly encourage everyone to participate in this exercise.

Anyway, when you are done, you get a nice pdf of your results. Below is the printout of my original plan that got the Debt to sustainable levels by 2018:

I may comment on my choices later.

Update 8/18/2011: I have removed my "Conservative Challenge:"

For instance, I even attempted once to follow the Grover Norquist/GOP style plan of all spending cuts and no revenue raisers. Even with draconian spending cuts and extension of the Bush tax cuts, I was still short of my goal by $2.5 trillion! Seeing as how you start off only needing an additional $2 trillion in deficit reduction, I was in a worse position than when I started (since the Bush tax cuts are already assumed to expire in 2012). Because of this, I challenge any conservative out there to successfully come up with a plan that accomplishes the main goal of this simulator, to get down to sustainable levels by 2018!

The reason I removed this is because Conservatives could easily retort by claiming they could cut funding for a whole wide range of programs. The problem with this is that this simulator only deals with plans that have a remote chance of political feasibility. They also deal with plans that aren't likely to crash the US economy. Often politicians love to just come up with bare numbers. Although you obviously can find that much in savings, the programs that would be cut either have little effect on the budget or would likely have adverse economic consequences. 

For instance, Cutting off the FDA and Medicaid could have drastic effects on a nation's health, which would almost certainly have a severe negative impact on GDP and employment. It is also not certain corporations would actually use the money they save from deregulation to decrease prices, higher more, or just save up the extra revenue. The cutoff from government spending would almost certainly have a drastic effect on consumer demand since millions would likely either lose their source of income (entitlement/subsidy/etc) but also their jobs. This is one possible outcome and generally unacceptable to the overwhelming majority of Americans.



Of course one could argue that taking the government out of the equation could add an entirely new industry for private entrepreneurs to expand, but it's not clear they would be willing to do it given an already unstable climate where consumer demand has likely plummeted. We see this now as many companies are making record profits but not transferring those profits into jobs. Either way, the outcome is uncertain (how will it effect revenues?).

Basically, it seems Conservatives will likely not take the challenge seriously. Many would rather continue to live in a fantasy-like state where drastic cutbacks to federal programs would actually help in this economy.