Over the past few years, America has had its share of problems. However, more recently, angry strikes by frustrated and underpaid citizens have made headlines. Surprisingly, it turned out that most of these protesters were teachers; angry at the government and the economic approach taken to “improve” budget issues. The approach was called the Deficit Reduction Plan (DRP). This solution required reducing the debt by reducing spending and increasing taxes. In 2009, the U.S. deficit reached a record high, reaching nearly $1.4 trillion. Since deficit reductions have not worked in the past, many individuals and politicians were skeptical of the DRP, but Goldman Sachs, in an April 10 report, writes that in the first three months in 2013, the deficit was 0.4% lower than that of $16. trillion compared to previous years. Goldman says that by the end of this year, our debt should be reduced to $744 billion! This should be fantastic news, but according to private sector and government economists, "the country's unemployment rate would be nearly a point lower, or about 6.5 percent, and economic growth would be almost two times higher." points this year if Washington had not cut its spending. and raised taxes. The Economic Times authors also claim that the DRP will have a negative impact on us, reducing our deficit to almost $20 trillion by 2015. Overall, cutting spending and raising taxes have hit the education sector hard. Architects, accountants and mechanical engineers were also affected, but not significantly. The damage was most closely linked to teachers and their already low salaries. According to the Department of Education, the average teacher salary is approximately $56,643; however, in our small state of South Dako...... middle of paper ......st option. We should not get to a place where despair shows through in our actions. The way to help make teaching a desirable profession and improve our societal morality is to reduce unfavorable spending. These expenses include athlete overpayments which, if we can reduce them to a reasonable amount, we can redistribute to teachers. It doesn't have to be a huge increase, but even a few thousand dollars can help. /05/09/1985811/deficit-reduction-higher-unemployment/ http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/09/us/deficit-reduction-is-seen-by-economists-as-impeding-recovery .html?pagewanted=all http://www.nctq.org/tr3/docs/nctq_recession_salary.pdf http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/story/2012-01-12/NCAA-student -college-athletes/52524454/1