2. The first option in the process involves some excellent work
done by the Bipartisan Policy Center and their Debt
Reduction Task Force. This task force was headed by
former Republican New Mexican Senator Pete Domenci
and Democrat Alice Rivlin, the original director of the
Congressional Budget Office. They have come up with
an excellent, in-depth analysis and proposal that would
reduce Federal government debt by over $6 TRILLION.
It is a balanced approach that recommends significantly
more spending cuts than tax increases and does a pretty
good job of spreading the pain across the entire country.

3. Given their detailed work, lets use their $6 TRILLION as
the target for debt reduction. Lets also use the model
that has worked in the past that the political class has
used historically to duck its responsibilities. For example,
when it was obvious that the country needed to reduce
the number of military bases the military was operating,
the politicians could not bring themselves to vote on
individual bases since the politicians were deathly afraid
that even though it might be the right decision for the
nation, it might cost them a few votes.

4. Rather than endanger their reelection chances, the political
class came up with the concept of the base closing
commission that would take the heat for recommending
what bases to close. The politicians set up a process
where they could only vote for what the commission
recommended in total, they could not change or cherry
pick the commission's findings. Thus, they could hide
behind what the commission recommended and what
Congress voted on in total, not on individual bases fix
the debt.