The Nation's Fiscal Future

The co-chairmen of President Obama's debt and deficit commission provided an ominous assessment of the nation's fiscal future on Sunday.  They called the current budgetary trends a cancer "that will destroy the country from within" unless addressed with tough action in Washington.   Here are the bullet points from their assessment:

• Bowles said that unlike the current economic crisis, which was largely unforeseen before it hit in fall 2008, the coming fiscal calamity is staring the country in the face. "This one is as clear as a bell," he said. "This debt is like a cancer."
• The commission leaders said that, at present, federal revenue is fully consumed by three programs: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. "The rest of the federal government, including fighting two wars, homeland security, education, art, culture, you name it, veterans -- the whole rest of the discretionary budget is being financed by China and other countries," with a promise to pay by our children.
• "We can't grow our way out of this,". "We could have decades of double-digit growth and not grow our way out of this enormous debt problem. We can't tax our way out. . . . The reality is we've got to do exactly what [governors do every day]. We've got to cut spending or increase revenues or do some combination of that."

Okay.  If they are serious, I'm in.  But let's see the cuts first so that we know they are serious.