The true cause of our growing national debt is non-discretionary, or mandatory spending, programs. As a matter of fact, over the next 30 years, Social Security faces a $19 trillion deficit and Medicare faces a $44 trillion deficit. If we are truly going to produce a balanced budget, which we should be striving to do, we need to be having serious discussions about these entitlement programs, which make up approximately 60 percent of all spending.