The acknowledged debt is 16+ trillion, but there are another 250+ trillion in unfunded liabilities. We have to cut spending and unfunded mandates/liabilities should be made illegal.

Mmmm... cut entitlement! Lets look at that for a moment.

I have seen a lot of posts here and elsewhere basically painting those on food stamps and SS as spongers and leeches etc. However, they don't seem to want to think about why the number of people on food stamps and SS payments has risen so drastically. I'm sure many of those on welfare payments would rather be earning a better amount and being able to pay their way, and buy the things they want, rather than subsisting on meager handouts.

This has been building for a long, long time, from one administration to another, watched over by both big parties, yet you don't have to be some ivy league schooled economist to see the problem.

For example..... Big corporate players found they could save huge amounts of money, and thus increase profits, by sending all the jobs overseas to "emerging" economies in developing nations. The products still get made, just at a fraction of the cost they used to be made at.
However, the downside, after years of job off-shoring, is that those people who used to do that work, are now either unemployed and unable to get work (due to increased off-shoring) or are working for lower wages. Thus, the amount of tax revenue being collected drops dramatically.

Now comes another big kicker... the goods are now all made overseas and shipped in for consumption. As the domestic citizens who used to make them are on lower wages, the time comes where they can no longer afford to be the good little consumers they used to be, so stop buying. Meanwhile, the executives at those corporations that sacked all the domestic workers and sent the jobs overseas, get big bonuses for increasing profitability for the big shareholders, usually big banks.
They don't care about long term plans, just the short term, get rich quick and screw everyone else outlook, even as the dire consequences of their "strategy" spirals out of control and plunges the entire economy into ever increasing debt to just maintain the illusion of an economy.

There wouldn't have to be huge "entitlement" spending, if not for the greed and short sightedness of those in power, who after all don't usually have to suffer the austerity they decide to bring in to give the illusion they are trying to turn the situation around. The politicians and bankers have used the big reset button called "World War" twice before to cover their tracks and will do so again if they need to, but hey, even that is good for business... for some!

Until we rid ourselves of the debt based society we live in nothing can ever be done. You can cut everything and still come up short.

Fractional Reserve banking/ the fed are the culprit. Encourages mal-investments, every country in the world is facing a similar crisis. The solution is to always take everything from the people. Our entire economic model relies on debt and can not function without it. Austerity is not the solution. The budget will never, ever be balanced, and under our current system it would hurt more than it helps.

Hi JI. The answer is NO. If the government completely confiscated all of the money of those "rich old white men", it would run the country for ~ 2 weeks.