Crunching Numbers: Americans Take Deficit Crisis Into Own Hands

July 29, 2011 — -- ABC News' Jonathan Karl gathered five average Americans of various ages, genders and political parties today to see whether they could reach a solution on the budget crisis.

The participants ranged from a Tea Party member to a liberal Democrat:

Leslie Echols, a mother turning 50 next month, Democrat

Megan Nabaviania, a single mother, 30, voted for Barack Obama and might vote for him again, but likes what she hears from Republicans in Congress

Barbara A Schauer, a member of the D.C. Tea Party, fiscally conservative and not socially, a civil engineer who liked the Tea Party critiques of the budget and the Federal Reserve

Drew Greenblatt, a small business owner

Tim McBride, liberal in his 20s, a junior and president of his student body at American University

Given only an hour, they hashed it out in attempts to reduce the budget by between $2.4 trillion and $4 trillion. While the GOP contends that $2.4 trillion is needed to give President Obama his debt-ceiling increase, most observers argue that $4 trillion would prevent a credit rating downgrade.

They accepted the $1 trillion in cuts already agreed to by the GOP and Democrats, and set out to tackle the more difficult proposals on entitlement programs, taxes and defense. They quickly got stuck on taxes.

'No' to Home Mortgage Reduction

They rejected a plan to eliminate the home mortgage deduction, which would mean no deducting interest payments that Americans spend on their homes.

Leslie Echols said the plan wasn't a good idea.

"For many Americans, that's the only deduction that they have," she said.

"I don't think we should be doing anything to disincentivize people from buying houses right now," McBride said.

They disagreed on getting rid of the Bush tax cuts for people making more than $250,000 -- a proposal that would save $1 trillion.

Echols said she was in favor of the idea but Greenblatt said that proposal targeted small-business owners like himself.

"It's not rich people you're hitting," he said, "you're hitting small businesses, which means that if you have 20 employees, you're not going to be able to afford some."