The debt and deficit seem to have become common themes for the Obama administration. Indeed, according to The New York Times, he used some combination of those words 19 times in his State of the Union address, words that were trumped only by those of jobs, 29 times, and tax, 21 times.

Thus, we know what the president’s overriding concern is now that the liberal agenda (health care, cap-and-tax) has been at the very least stalled in the Congress: the economy. And the president’s rhetoric, at least, has been heading in the right direction.

He announced the beginning of a bipartisan commission whose sole focus would be on decreasing the debt. He announced that a spending freeze on some domestic spending would be enacted for three years. And, undeniably, he does propose freezing and even eliminating some costly programs in his newest budget proposal.

But Mr. Obama, if I am granted this cliché, has been talking the talk without walking the walk.

First of all, the freeze on some discretionary spending is only a symbolic gesture, much like talk of limiting earmarks is. It will have basically no discernable impact on the budget. According to The New York Times, of the $3.8 trillion budget the president is proposing, $2.4 trillion is on mandatory spending, such as Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and interest on the national debt. One cannot seriously talk of lowering the debt without doing something of impact that relates to the behemoths that are Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

As well as not dealing with the problems that these programs pose, he has also lived by the politician’s credo””if a government program does not work, subsidize it.

In his newest budget, education, through the massive failure that is No Child Left Behind, will receive $3.5 billion more than last year.

These massive deficits will continue into the near future, and into the not so near future. President Obama admits as much in his budget projections. He predicts budget deficits even into 2020.

Is this really that big of a deal, some may ask?

In short, yes. If we continue down this unsustainable course, our future will be filled with imminent doom. For we will have only two courses of action: one, we experience massive inflation that would make Weimar Germany look like a beacon of fiscal sanity; and two, suffer a Great(er) Depression that would cripple our economy for years on end.

That is, unless we make drastic changes as soon as possible.

How do we fix this mess? One thing the president could do is to remove our troops from foreign lands that we occupy””all of them. Aside from Iraq and Afghanistan, we still have troops and bases in Japan, Germany, South Korea, and Italy. We even have troops stationed in England, a country that one wouldn’t think is in danger of being overrun by the terrorist hordes.

This is unnecessary. It is time we become a normal country again. Bringing our troops home will save billions, even trillions of dollars, and may even be a safer foreign policy.

Something must also be done about Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. They are bankrupting the nation. To be perfectly frank, less benefits must be given. We, as a nation, cannot afford it. Raise the age limit for these programs, and limit the funding.

Something must be done to fix this problem. Unfortunately, it seems that no one in elected office has the guts to even try.