The Fiscal Cliff, Isn't it Just Math?

The most prominent thing in political news directly following the re-election of Barak Obama is "The Fiscal Cliff".  I'm no accountant or economist or whatever and so I don't really understand it, I just know it has to do with our country going back into the dust bowl if we don't figure something out. 

Here's what I don't understand: Out of 300 million people living in the US, don't we have anyone smart enough to figure something out? I mean, it seems like all we need is a mathmagician, right? Out of 300 billion people, aren't there probably like a trillion or so people who know math inside out & upside down? Out of those million people there's got to be at least 20 million mathmagicians out there who could maybe go into a college lecture hall with one of those 30 foot high chalk boards and work out an equation to save us all.

Here's what I do understand: Debt (pronounced Det), is where you have negative money. This is where things get fuzzy, cause I don't really get how you can have less than zero of anything although I am currently there with my mortgage. So right now the US has minus some trillion dollars. And I do understand that a trillion is a really, really, really big....like hmm...take a footlong hotdog....no...something longer like... a snake....and ..no, a giraffe neck....and like you have a mil- no, a hundred thousand of those.... well actually probably it's more like every grain of sand on every beach you've ever seen. OK and so we have to figure a way to cut down (& eventually eliminate, hahahahaha, huh....eliminate this debt). All I know is it will take something DRASTIC! And that is why I employ the mathmagicians of the US to help save us!