We have a huge debt.  The debt is caused because the federal government spends more than it gets in. You either have to increase income or reduce expenses. The deficit is large enough and the debt so vast that raising taxes would not likely do the trick and besides, it rewards poor financial management.

What pro-mommy government people don't realize, typically because they've never dealt with the government itself, is that the government is incredibly inefficient and incompetent.  It's not like your tax dollar goes to some poor person directly. Instead, it goes through a huge beaueucracy which eats up most of it and then a small amount makes it back.  Nothing is more efficient than individuals spending their own money and living within their means.

The debt is not caused by welfare to poor people. It's not caused by defense. It's caused by an over expenditure in both social programs and non-social programs. 

The reason this issue won't get solved is that people who care enough to even talk about this issue have no apparent idea of what the government spends its money on in the first place.  You have some people talking about education as if it's mainly funded by the federal government when in fact arguably the federal government shouldn't be spending anything on public schools (it's a state issue). You have others insisting that the problem is too much defense spending despite the fact that the deficit exceeds the entire defense budget.  The biggest problem is that the federal government is spending money on things that really have nothing to do with the job of the federal government.

Just because one believes in welfare doesn't mean that the federal government is the one to provide it.  The federal government is the least equipped to provide these programs because of its inherent inefficiecy. It would be much better for states or local communities to handle it if you don't trust charities (for some reason, liberals don't like charities and instead want the government to do instead despite the obvious ineptitude of governments).

People who love the government to do things are almost always people who have never had to deal with one of their agencies.  Ever deal with the phone company? Or some other big private industyr monopoly? They're usually incredibly incompotent. But that's nothing compared to the government.

If we want to eliminate the deficit and reduce the debt, we have to take a cold hard look at where the federal government spends its money. Then we have to make some tough decisions.