Raising taxes or changing the rate structure or what ever else is discussed is for naught if no one adresses the basic issue of matching spending to revenues/input.

There is always the red herring tactic of reducing or eliminating programs that most affect we the people. There is NEVER any discussion about all the quid quo pro programs or each lawmakers favorite or the special interst-minority group programs.

The first candidate to address the current problem....which is spending beyond the means will be the only one(s) to know what they are talking about.
If it is a career politician or a lwayer traind candidate they will have no idea of the details that make a buget viable....nor do they care.

Obama will have another legacy item to add to his list of dumb things he did/did not do......demand a balanced budget. He obviously prefers the open ended, as usual no committment, kick the can down the road, oh my gosh we are gonna shut down the government if we don't do something side show!

Until someone that understands zero based budgeting gets in office there will be not much change in how the finances are run.
Who is it in the government that is responsible for going through the budget line by line and asking....what is this for?
That won't happen because there is an unwritten code in Washington, if you don't attack my favorite programs I won't go after yours. Then they all go after things like medicare and SS and continue to allow ACA to run wild on expenditures while fleecing the tax payer.

As long as it remains political there will be no progress on budgeting.

And the immigration of millions into the system only assures at some point in the future revenues will continue to decline as there will be fewer and fewer actually paying taxes.....however that most likely will not affect spending until the system finally collapses.

This subject may well be the issue that is a sleeping disaster with a cliff effect waiting to happen.