Let's talk about this for a bit, because we have one candidate (Gary Johnson) who keeps spouting off about government debt (and he's right) along with 43% budget reductions (and he's right) but he's not looking at the rest of the issue, and what's worse, neither of the other candidates think this is a big deal at all.

This is the current table of government debt for calendar year 2012:

The right-most figure is the monthly change in the total debt (the third numerical column); positive figures are increases, negative ones are decreases.  The outstanding debt has gone up every month thus far in 2012.

The bottom figure is the extrapolated figure at the current "run rate" of debt out to the end of the year.  With seven months in the can, it's thus 7/12ths of the total.

Last year, incidentally, we ran $1.198 trillion, so we're basically in the same place.

The federal budget "as spent" is about $3.8 trillion, so to reduce the deficit to zero we would have to cut expenditures by about 33% gross.  As deficit spending causes GDP to rise, the actual amount we would have to cut spending (due to tax loss flow-through) is materially larger, which is where Governor Johnson (and Bill Still, for that matter) get their ~40% decrease numbers from.

What everyone has to understand but does not want to talk about is that GDP is about $15.5 trillion (as of the last number we have.) 

That is, there is roughly 8% of purchasing power depreciation being shoved down your throat by the federal government this year.  This is on the back of ~10-12% for each of the last three years.

This depreciation does not hit everyone equally.  Some people get hit worse (e.g. you lose your job and do not qualify for unemployment; your purchasing power gets whacked by 50% or more!) while others actually profited (e.g. banksters.) 

You can look at the Median Income tables put out by the US Census, and you will find that from 2007-2008 to 2009-2010, on a 2-year average basis, the "inflation-adjusted" figures fell 3.6% nationally.  This grossly understates the issue, however, as it uses CPI as opposed to monetary inflation.  It thus captures only part of the economy -- intentionally.

But the truth is that monetary balance is what matters in the end.  We are trained to ignore this by the mainstream media -- on purpose -- but any amount of reflection brings the idiocy of such a premise to light. 

Let's assume there are 10,000 units of currency and credit in the system and 10,000 units of production. We then double the units of currency and credit, to 20,000.

It is obvious that with the same units of production (denominated in, say, "cars", "televisions", or "loaves of bread") each unit of production must now cost twice as much in units of currency or credit!

So from the gross (nominal) number of units you earn in salary one must compare against the ratio between the total of money and credit in the system balanced against production.  When private industry emits unbacked credit the proper term for this is counterfeiting and it should be a felony, as under The Constitution only Congress has the power to emit ("coin") currency and fix the value thereof.

When Government does this the proper term for it is taxation; whether government removes your wealth by directly confiscating it through the payment of taxes or whether it debases your purchasing power by emitting credit into the economy the impact in mathematical terms on your life is exactly identical.  In both cases your wealth is taken by the government and spent by that government as it directs.

What the government has attempted to do is protect the banksters, who effectively counterfeited nearly $20 trillion in bogus credit money from 2000-2007, from having to eat the consequences of their actions.  The consequences of not protecting them from this, that is, allowing the market to assert itself and punish these institutions for their actions, would have been that all their businesses would have failed.

But the only way to protect them from that outcome, ladies and gentlemen, is to find someone to steal the actual wealth from to put in place of the false representation of capital that resulted in their "loans" having value (that is, being able to be paid and backed by an asset.) 

Guess who they stole that wealth from?  You!

The honest way to do so is to raise taxes so you see very penny that goes into the government coffers and is then spent in this support.  The dishonest way is to deficit spend and hope the bond market doesn't throw up all over you, effectively stealing the production of the nation and transferring it to the banksters who made the bad bets.

The problem with the dishonest approach is that it's unsustainable as it is predicated on a lie.  It can only "succeed" if the government can manage to get enough people to once-again believe the lie and borrow.  But to borrow you must (1) want to, and (2) be qualified to.

Best of luck on that.... we'd be far better-served to deal honestly with the size of government and its demands on us, negotiating between government and citizen exactly what services we want and what taxes we are willing to pay to have those services.

Sadly, that negotiation is utterly absent in all of the political parties -- Democrat, Republican, and, unfortunately, Libertarian.