Balancing the Budget

In Newsweek's article, Wake Up, America by Robert J. Samuelson published on May 13, 2010, Samuelson thinks that the current European economic crisis needs to be an example for America. To him, Americans aren't seriously considering that this could happen to us because of the size of our national debt.
The hard part about balancing the budget is that very few politicians want to do it. Liberals want to keep social spending and conservatives want to keep defense spending. Neither really want to raise taxes, especially conservatives, and that would be necessary if we wanted to balance the budget while we keep spending.
The significance of this issue is how large the scope of the government should be. The larger it is, the harder it is to balance the budget.
Obama has made a "National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform" but has done little else to balance the budget.
We think that our growing national debt is a serious threat. But it is difficult for our country to balance how much we spend with how much we tax. The politicians should make balancing the budget a more prominent issue on the policy agenda and maybe over time, America's budget could be back on track.

By: Alex Kelly and Sarah Lapotin

photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/inkyfingerz/454976773/