"Canada's Budget Triumph," a recent paper from David Henderson (published by the Mercatus Center) is well worth the read.  It is particularly instructive as Washington implements immediate spending cuts and faces a $4.5 billion deficit for the 2011-13 biennium.

Back in 1993-94, Canada's federal debt to GDP ratio was 67 percent (and they were spending fully six percent of GDP for interest on the debt).  They managed to reduce the debt to GDP ratio to 29 percent only 16 years later.  Plus, they had a budget surplus every year between 1997 and 2008.  They succeeded mainly by cutting spending (along with some tax increases, but only by one dollar for every six or seven dollars in spending cuts).

Canada's success in reducing budget deficits is very heartening given the situation in the U.S. and in Washington.  According to Henderson, even given differences in political structure, the same budgetary achievement can happen here:

First, the Canadian experience shows us that a large budget deficit can be turned into a budget surplus with ten years of fiscal discipline, mainly with spending cuts. It can happen here in the United States. We do not have to accept the idea that we have only two grim choices: living with huge budget deficits and a federal debt that both increase as a percent of GDP, or accepting our current spending but reducing the budget deficit with major tax increases.

Cutting spending, as painful as it may be in the short term, works.