You're right. Strangling spending is a way to reduce the deficit. But there's no way that will actually result in a deficit-free budget.

Unfortunately, even if all discretionary government spending were eliminated, we would still generate substantial annual deficits and additions to the national debt.

The federal budget for FY 2011 is $3.6 trillion. Tax revenues amount to $2.4 trillion. The resulting deficit is $1.2 trillion.

The total of "discretionary" items in the budget is $1.4 trillion. That is, less than half of federal spending is truly controlled by annual appropriations bills. The balance of $2.2 trillion must be spent as the result of prior legislation, such as for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, TARP, and the recently-approved jobs bill.

So, very simply--I'm repeating this yet another time--in order to balance the annual federal budget, virtually ALL discretionary government spending would have to be eliminated--86% of the total discretionary budget. I should point out that the largest item in the discretionary budget is that of the Defense Department which is $549 billion of the $1.4 trillion discretionary budget. So using a ridiculous example to illustrate the problem, if ALL discretionary government spending was eliminated and the balance used to only fund the Defense Department, even defense would have to take a 64% cut to it's budget.

Obviously, that leaves the Congress to consider changes in existing laws to reduce "mandatory" budget items--Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the interest on the national debt are the largest items. Or, if they don't have the guts to slash those expenses, then the only alternative is to raise taxes.

The math isn't hard--it's only arithmetic.