The Congressional Budget Office projects unemployment won't even fall below 6% until 2017.
This may be too pessimistic: It assumes a number of tax cuts expire next year, dampening the fragile recovery. But both parties want to keep at least some of those cuts.
What measures -- spending cuts, tax hikes, or both -- are needed to tame the budget deficit? Money magazine looks at how we got here and how big our debt really is.
