...who would rather remain nameless.

So I had a conversation with two other guys about the government, and it's failings. We specifically looked at the national deficit. Essentially, the government is borrowing in order to pay off it's debts, never collecting enough in taxes to make up the difference. The reason for this is absurd over-spending by Congressmen on all the special-interest groups that got them in power. See, there's no oversight at this level; the president always tries to convince them to spend less, but they never listen. The people need all this stuff! Don't you know that! And we're not going to vote them out because they're doing it; we want them to! It's the national epidemic on the federal level.
We came to the conclusion that the government operates on the same basis as a living organism, with individuals as cells; each acting in our own interest. Sometimes an organism gets fat, or gets cancer, or whatever. The organism will protect itself from harm, and protect it's habits, even if those habits are harmful in the long run.
Anyway, the solution, as far as we could figure it, was to make it illegal to spend more than is brought in by taxes. For the next 100 years or so, 5% of the income would go to paying off debt. No new Treasury bonds could be issued, ever. If the country needs money for a war, or an emergency, it needs to save up for it, just like a kid with an allowance. 5% for that too. In order to get all this money, projects would have to be cut in a major way. Everything; welfare, healthcare. Get rid of the IRS, do the national sales tax thing. Even defense and education would suffer, people. Our highways would suck for a while, farm subsidies would dissapear. You know what? It's okay. We'll make it through.
Of course, this is all just a ideal case. The Congress is not going to vote limits onto itself, we're not gonna make 'em.