I would accept raising taxes, if it were on a temporary and scheduled basis. Every plan is always like "This should reduce whatever, by this amount, over the next ten, fifteen, twenty, etc years." Seems to me that the US could make a more concentrated effort of saying, "We WILL reduce our debt by X amount over the next ten years by instating this specific plan. By twenty years, we will have reached this level of debt reduction by moving to stage two of whatever plan, etc."

That's how I work my budget. Pick some debt, eliminate it, take that card out of my wallet, move onto the next target.