Why deficit ideas are doomed

Many of the ideas make sense, but the political will to raise taxes, eliminate the mortgage deduction, and tinker with Social Security is simply not there. And for a very good reason - supporting those and other proposals made by the co-chairmen of President Obama's deficit reduction commission would be career suicide. From the NYT's Catherine Rampell:

The problem is that just about every potential solution to the long-term fiscal crisis involves severe short-term political pain, in the form of fewer services or higher taxes. And the people in charge of selling these ideas -- members of Congress -- know that their careers are aligned on the short-term time-frame, not the long-term one. So the question becomes: How do you get politicians elected on a short-term basis to think about the long-term good of the country, given that short-term and the long-term goals appear to be at odds?

Short answer is you don't until a mega-crisis forces everybody's hand.