Primary Cause Of U.S. Long-Term Debt

This chart is from the Facebook page of Senator Bernie Sanders. It shows the primary causes of our long-term debt. Note that one of the biggest causes right now (and an even bigger cause in the future) is the enormous tax cuts Bush gave (primarily to the rich). If we really want to drive down the deficit and the debt, we need to finish getting rid of those tax cuts (a few were eliminated at the end of last year) -- for everyone. We can't cut our way to a balanced budget without cutting a lot of fat from the military budget, but we could eliminate a lot of future debt by eliminating the tax cuts. And if we really wanted to balance the budget, we should do both.