This is not so hard...
The GOP underfunds the IRS, allowing $300 Billion in unpaid taxes every year. Of course, who is most likely to avoid paying taxes in large amounts? The poor?
The IRS reports that there is ~$300B in uncollected taxes annually. Republicans de-fund the IRS so the money cannot be collected. This is an unvoted upon tax-cut of massive size that goes mostly to the wealthy. If we provide proper funding, let us assume that only 2/3 could actually efficiently found and recovered. That amounts to $2 trillion over a decade.
That's halfway to the goal without any spending cuts or tax rate increases.
A financial activities ("FAT") tax of only 0.5% would collect $100B annually, or $1 trillion in a decade.
We have now reached $3 Trillion in reductions. The financial industry cannot afford an infinitesimal 0.5%? GMAFB.
Reducing defense expenditures by 10%, that should not be difficult by bringing troops home from Iraq and winding down Afghanistan as is scheduled, would generate another $60B annually, or $600B in a decade.
That is $3.6 Trillion of deficit reductions.
Allowing the Bush tax cuts to go back to their levels under Bill Clinton for the top bracket would raise another $70B annually, or $700B in 10 years. If one cares to argue that we do not need the entire $700B, then raise the top bracket cutoff higher than $250,000, and impose a higher tax rate on it than 39.6%, so that we get $50B annually, or $500B in 10 years.
We have now hit $4.1-4.3 Trillion. No poor person has been denied benefits, no sick child has gone without healthcare, no teachers have been laid off, no firefighters denied their pensions, no medicare beneficiaries denied their benefits, no Head Start program has been downsized.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-abrams/the-sane-and-easy-4-trill_b_863972.html
Of course, maybe debt reduction isn't really the goal....
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