[nawitus]

"We have a spending problem."

Scandinavian countries spend way more and can balance the budget (though there's the eurocrisis, but it was possible before the depression). The problem with budget deficit in USA is lack of taxation. Tax revenue per GDP is very low.

United States: 26.9% Sweden: 47.9% ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_revenu... )

Just increase taxing and there's no deficit.

[crusso]

Look at the discussion section on that Wikipedia article. A lot of that chart is for crap because the collection of the tax data is not consistent. In particular, the US's State and Local taxes are not included which puts us far lower. I looked at it yesterday, thinking to use it in a discussion, but gave up because it's just not an accurate picture.