This week's debt ceiling deal seems not to have satisfied anyone on either side of the political spectrum. For the Tea Party and fiscal conservatives, the deal to cut $2.4 trillion in spending over the next 10 years does not go far enough. For liberals, the deal calls for too many spending cuts, especially to Medicare, without raising revenues, that is to say taxes.

or the U.S. to make any progress on the deficit, Mauldin says Congress must cut $10 trillion over the next decade. Make no mistake, cutting that much will cause pain, but the alternative to continue to kick the can down the road will only create more pain. "We don't want to become Greece," he warns. If we fail to address the problems now, we'll have to "raise taxes to levels nobody can comprehend," he argues.