The shining city upon a hill has been looking a little dingy lately.

The U.S. has undergone tremendous turmoil during an economic recession that was inflicted by consumerism and corporate greed, increased partisan bickering and a government with a spending problem.

None of this comes as a surprise to anybody who has been alive for these last few years, but what has been done about it? Nothing.

Thus, I am personally a fan of Paul Ryan.

This may seem unusual, considering that I have been accused of leaning slightly left, but Paul Ryan is a hard man for a hard time.

He’s not afraid to speak plainly, and in reality America has an obesity problem. Not just because of fast food and an intense hatred toward exercise, but also in its checkbook.

We truly have become the fat cats of the world and our sense of self-entitlement appears unbelievable. According to the World Bank, 85 percent of the world’s population lives in undeveloped countries – all while we pile food into our mouths and spew noxious fumes that destroy the same environment in which we live and act entitled.

Yet, when somebody proposes an honest solution of cutting a major social service – Medicare – that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, takes up 23 percent of our budget and costs $835 billion a year, we throw up our arms in protest. But in this budget, it is an option Congress needs to consider.

I’m not proposing that we cut health services altogether. But, I do think our social programs no longer function effectively and need to see a major revamp that includes a greater dependency on private insurance coverage and increases the age requirement for these services. The first stage of this change was Obamacare.

However, none of this commentary has yet proven to you that cutting Medicare would change much in the budget. Therefore, let me throw some numbers out there for you. The Congressional Budget Committee estimated in 2001 that by 2011 the U.S. government would be $2.3 trillion in the black, according to The Pew Trust Charitable Trusts.

We have now accumulated $12.7 trillion in debt. Spending increases, accompanied by a sudden downturn in revenue caused by the Great Recession, led to a country with a deficit almost as large as its GDP. The difference between the projection and reality – according to the Congressional Budget Committee – was caused by major legislative expenses, including Medicare.

Medicare has become a growing burden on our economy and government, and it will continue to do so. According to the Economist, the number of Americans over the age of 60 will increase from 40 million to 80 million in 20 years.

All of this leads me back to Paul Ryan, a man willing to stand up, look America in the face and tell it honestly that it has started to look a little chubby.

However, this doesn’t mean I’m going to tell you to vote for Ryan’s baby blue eyes this November. Paul Ryan might have a realistic approach toward spending cuts, but the Romney/Ryan campaign would also keep the Bush-Era tax cuts, another major contributor to the budget deficit.

Truthfully, neither Obama’s nor Romney’s solutions for America appeal to me. Therefore, I really am stuck in the middle. I wish a viable candidate existed who had common sense and realized you can’t balance a budget without both spending cuts and revenue increases.