Everyone understands, but they are unwilling to acknowledge or discuss, that increasing the number of IRS agents, cutting down on discretionary spending, or using positive thinking would not fix the budget situation. Envision our "ship of state" plummeting. Using your coffee cup to try to save the quickly increasing water level is known as the "cut discretionary funding" method.
As a nation, we have to deal with the automatically rising non-discretionary funding. This includes Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security. A certain amount of cost-cutting and contribution-raising equilibrium. Perhaps it entails moving the initial eligibility for Social Security and Medicare, as well as the Social Security full retirement age, to the right. This would imply that everyone under the age of X would have to wait until they are Y years old to qualify for Medicare, and Z years old to reach the Social Security full retirement age.
As things stand, and have for far too long, one party just whines that the other is trying to destroy the world by reducing benefits or raising taxes. I hate to bring bad news to anyone, but both will be necessary.
It is simply arithmetic; it is not politics.