@Pisces Welcome to Fluther. Great question.
Greece is facing a real debt crisis. The people there generally don’t want to work much, they cheat on their taxes, and they want lots from their government—far more than we expect or get. Austerity is the only way out of a real debt crisis. We aren;t facing a debt crisis.
We are facing a political crisis. If we continue to spend more than the rest of the world combined on defense, If we must spend far more per person for our dysfunctional healthcare system, then austerity means we stop investing in education, research, the environment, and infrastructure. That is not likely to keep us positioned as the leader of the free world. It’s a formula to turn us into a third-world country.
We have been spending too much for the revenue we are raising. We need to decide what is worth spending on, and then adjust the loopholes out of the tax code till we are developing sufficient revenue to do that and nothing more. That’s the way out. But we can’t even have the national conversation about what We the People want from government because we are wound up in left/right hate and political talking points.