How should the US government deal with its rising national debt?

📈 Raise taxes (13%) – "Our highest tax rate is significantly lower than it should be. The Reagan Administration lowered tax rates, and our debt problems stem from there. This does not mean increase taxation of those barely surviving; this means taxing the ultra-wealthy at a much higher rate on capital gains, not just income."

• "Repeatedly cutting of tax rates as we have done has created a shortfall of income. It’s been proven time and time again that tax cuts DO NOT pay for themselves by increasing economic activity, and yet that line keeps getting spouted every time we do them."

📉 Cut spending (41%) – "The tax burden is already too heavy U.S. citizens. We pay federal tax, state tax, property tax, sales tax, gas tax, etc. Every successful business knows that you can't spend more than you make. Every financial responsible individual knows that you can't spend more than you make. So why do our government leaders ignore this basic fact and keep spending more than the country makes. They are afraid of losing popularity with voters instead of doing the right thing to fix the budget."

• "Let's be very clear - when you spend more money than you make, you need to STOP SPENDING so cavalierly. The answer isn't print more or demand handouts from the people already funding the budget. Although we didn't get this way overnight, spending has been skyrocketing lately; we need better stewards of our financial resources sitting on Capitol Hill and in the White House."

"I realize it will never happen, but the only way out of this is to cut back on spending. We can't tax ourselves into financial stability, let alone prosperity. How many hundreds of billions of dollars are spent on programs that are blatantly unconstitutional?"

• "The government (like many corporations) needs to look internally and ask questions about their spending habits and if it is necessary. Start by cutting the fat off at the top and work down by looking at programs that have over exceeded their budgets and begin holding areas accountable."

🖨️ Print more bonds/money to cover interest (8%) – "This seems to me like a reasonable but temporary option while Congress gets its stuff together and decides to address our massive debt levels."

👆 Some combination of the above (22%) – "Only 8 trillion of the debt is owed to outsiders. The rest is owed to ourselves. So it’s not as serious as it sounds. And as long as the debt remains below about two times,GDP, its should be no cause for concern. And this doesn’t even consider the fact that we could increase the money supply by printing more money."

• "There is definitely some “fat” that needs to be trimmed, but we must look into raising taxes against those who would be least impacted by a tax increase (corporations and top earners). Raising taxes alone won’t do it and we MUST look into cutting cost otherwise a tax cut alone could still mean run away spending or cost creep later on. If both side of the aisle want meet in the middle..then they can both feel pain and cut spending and raise taxes. I also think if we invest money into the CBO and IRS we could become much more efficient in how much we get taxes wise and how we spend our money to make real actionable decisions."

"Beyond cutting spending, we have to revise the "untouchables" and change legislation to make them "touchable". Our social program spending makes up the majority of the required spending. That's upside down at the federal level. We need to get the $33 trillion debt down to something manageable -- like $100 billion -- a massive reduction that is going to take years -- higher taxes, smaller government with only the basic services. Less done at the federal level and the states need to pick up what is important for their people."

🙅 Nothing needs to be done (7%) – "Most of the national debt is between agencies of the government. We owe it to ourselves."

🤷 Other/unsure (9%) – "We need to stop giving handouts to other countries and start selling these things. America has historically benefited from a war-time economy, like the roaring 20's. Selling military equipment to other countries fighting wars will allow us to somewhat recover and stop taking losses to aid other people."