The only thing that will ease the pain is do everything we can do get people back to work. This debt/no debt, taxes/no taxes, cutting/no cutting are only partial solutions. Regulations need to be gutted and employers need to be able to fire worthless employees, union or not, with no worry about some trumped up discrimination case. Employers also need to be able to adjust inflated wages. Take a pay cut to what the market will bear, or go find another job. Worthless, non productive members of society can pick lettuce or get someone other than a taxpayer to pay their way through life. Not gonna happen, so we will all crash and burn.
1. Reduce the risk of, and increase the potential gain from, creating a job. All federal, state, and local regulations and laws that disincentivise job creation should be reviewed, including those that ostensibly protect the environment and those that increase the difficuly of disciplining an employee who happens to be of a protected class.
2. Reduce or eliminate the corporate income tax. It makes no sense to tax corporate income twice, once at the corporate level and once at the dividend level.
3. Strictly enforce the ban on hiring illegals and forbid the participation of illegals in safety net programs.
4. Disincentivise idleness by reducing the level of support the unemployed receive - someone is going to have to do the jobs previously performed by the departed illegals.
If taken, these four steps would dramatically reduce the unemployment rate and improve all of our fortunes, monetary and otherwise.