Can Washington’s debt crisis be fixed? These normal Floridians tried.

Crystal River – As this country is facing a crisis, they answered the phone.

Each year, trillions of dollars are added to national debt, an astonishing reality in modern politics that Congress has been unable to address for decades. Millions of everyday citizens have seen it helplessly as their debts grow.

But about 200 mostly retired Floridians spoke out on Thursday afternoon in Citrus County. At the town hall hosted by Councilman Gus Bilirakis, they packed around a folding table familiar to anyone who has attended a church potluck. They began to pretend to be representatives of the United States. They had to pretend to resolve the crisis.

“Everyone, we have $36 trillion in national debt and we continue to climb,” said Bilirakis, a 10-term Republican and a member of the Congressional Government Efficiency Bureau (DOGE) Caucus. “We need to make difficult decisions.”

Recently, the national balance sheet has been in many minds. President Donald Trump is leading a new division to cut out what he sees as bulging from the nearly $7 trillion federal budget, seeking help from the world’s wealthiest man, Elon Musk. Congressional Republicans are about to pass their own spending plans that are likely to include cutting social programs.

Bilirakis, who was returning home the week before the important vote in Washington, wanted to hear from his constituents. If they were in Congress, how would they get US finances in turn?

Others of Congress held similar meetings across the country. Part of it has been derailed by angry people on the scale of government cuts under the Trump administration. But the crowds on Crystal River worked.

At all tables, a thick packet greeted participants. Inside there was a short summary courtesy of the nonpartisan Concord Coalition of the country’s financial outlook.

It’s dark. Last fiscal year, the US government spent around $6.8 trillion, despite receiving around $5 trillion in revenue. Mathematics says Congress needs to cut spending and raise revenue or both to balance the budget.

Luckily, the packet comes with options and exercises. Each table had to agree by numerous votes on whether to cut or fund more than three dozen federal programs. After that, I tallied my savings. Popular qualifications such as Social Security and Medicare were potentially located in the chopping block. Is the cut politically feasible? How many dents can participants create?

I was sitting in Table 6 with the other six. Five minutes after a lengthy explanation of the exercise by Phil Smith of the Concord Union, a teammate came out and tweeted that he didn’t want to do math.

After that, five others.

Terry Weaver, a retired university professor, quickly appeared as the table leader. He said he had performed similar exercises before online, cutting $6 trillion from his budget. He had already sent his suggestions to Birirakis.

“We need to set a goal of cutting like $4 trillion, so we’re not just deficit spending, we’re paying off our debts,” Weaver said.

First: General government expenditure. For this table, this was easy.

Should we add $200 billion to the deficit over the next decade to expand access to free, universal kindergartens? no. What about $325 billion for comprehensive paid family leave nationwide? Or billions more for free community colleges? No, no.

x federal grants to Amtrak, which operates trains nationwide, will save $71 billion. The deficit has grown so large that some good programs had to be disconnected, Weaver said.

Jim Bridgeland, a retired Inverness postal worker sitting across the table, agreed. The Navy veteran came to a meeting with his wife, Janet Bear.

To maintain my journalistic integrity, I did not give any opinion on any of these programs. But I took it to make it a second packet a guy, which outlined the meaning of each line item. I explained what the “Outyear Expense Cap” mentioned. (Don’t worry.) Groups recommend forcing the cap. Another $552 billion savings have been achieved.

There was little interest in cutting the Department of Defense talent budget by 17% over the next decade, as the table included three veterans. That would have saved nearly a trillion dollars. However, the group was pleased to cut foreign aid to reduce Musk’s specific goal of $187 billion.

“It’s all in vain,” said one of our teammates.

Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid accounted for almost half of last year’s budget. The group saved more than $1 trillion by curbing spending on Medicare Advantage, a series of federally funded private health insurance plans. It saved another $95 billion by increasing the full retirement age for Social Security to 70.

The table was cut so deeply that adding dentistry, vision and hearing impairment to traditional Medicare has not much effect on revenue. (Cost: $358 billion over the next 10 years.

“People can’t afford dentistry,” Bear reasoned.

The group fired up one by one. They agreed that increasing business rates means higher costs for consumers. Tax on greenhouse gas emissions? no thanks.

However, one huge item became the ultimate sticking point. Should the group extend the tax cuts Trump signed into law in 2017?

Extending the cuts he fought would disproportionately benefit wealthy makers, increasing the deficit by $3.2 trillion over a decade. But those were the achievement of the signature policy from the president’s first term.

“If you expand this, we’ll wipe out everything we’ve done,” Weaver said.

The table loved tax cuts. When Weaver did the exercises earlier, he held them and cut out the other programs more deeply. However, he didn’t have many options in this exercise. Mathematics was mathematics. Tax cuts had to be done.

The two-hour exercise is over. Bilirakis wandered the room and offered the opportunity to table leaders like Weaver to provide their findings. He proudly told the room that we’ve lost under $4.5 trillion.

If we were a real US representative, the cuts made would probably be very unpopular. Bridgeland seemed to understand this.

“We will not be re-elected,” he said. “But whatever.”

But Weaver, Bridgelands and Bears don’t have any real components. Birirakis does that.

Five days after the event at Crystal River, he voted for Yes in the Republican budget summary, potentially increasing the deficit by about $2.8 trillion over the decade. It included a budget room to extend Trump’s tax cuts.