There is of course waste. But the budget for everything apart from social security, medicare/caid, and defense is very small in comparison to those. The US could cut everything except for those three and it wouldn't delay the debt bomb's detonation by more than a year. Current projections are around 20 years of current trends. The US has to keep borrowing, or the world economy breaks down with no reserve currency. The trick is that the borrowing needs to keep increasing the gdp at the same rate as the debt. I.E. the loans have to be spent on assets. That is not currently the case.