Political will to curb those programs has been lacking in both parties, even though there appears to be growing consensus that benefits may have to be scaled back in some fashion.

On another front, like the Democrats, the incoming GOP leadership has not yet endorsed any plan to rein in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid — the most expensive entitlement programs and the budget sections that most specialists believe pose the greatest deficit dangers.

“There is no question that we need to get our deficit under control, but this is not the time to do it,’’ said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Global Insight, a research firm with headquarters in Lexington.

There also is an economic case being made against quick spending cuts. Many analysts argue that reductions would damage the fragile recovery by stemming the flow of federal dollars into the economy. They urge adoption of budget cuts now, while delaying their start for one or two years, when the US economy would be in better condition to withstand the spending reduction.

“You have to distinguish between the political theater of things and the things that have impact,’’ said Donald Marron, director of the tax policy center at the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington.

Some analysts see the House’s options as limited to symbolic votes for spending cuts that will not be adopted by Democrats.

Such moves backfired on Republicans 16 years ago during the Newt Ging rich revolution. The incoming Republican speaker of the House, John Boehner of Ohio, has said government shutdowns will not be an option. But he has left open the idea of blocking an increase in the debt limit, which would have the effect of immediately requiring dramatic budget cuts to avoid further deficit spending. The next debt limit vote is expected in March or April.

Politically, without a majority in the Senate, their leverage to win spending reductions will be limited to things like threatening government shutdowns, and refusing to raise the nation’s debt limit.

The party’s top priorities include extending income tax cuts for the wealthy and repealing President Obama’s health insurance overhaul, two steps that would deepen future deficits. Incoming leaders’ most specific cuts are limited to around $100 billion in the first year — a start, say analysts, but not nearly enough to get the nation’s projected debts under control.

But there are obstacles aplenty that could confound the GOP’s charge to reduce spending.

WASHINGTON — Newly empowered Republicans, energized by an antigovernment groundswell that helped them seize control of the House, are making pledges that thrill mainstream conservatives and Tea Partiers alike: They will slash deficits and cut government down to size.

Republicans and Democrats will have another opportunity to debate the volatile issue after Dec. 1, when a bipartisan deficit study panel backed by President Obama and mandated by Congress releases its report.

The 18-member panel of lawmakers and economic specialists has been weighing ideas like raising the retirement age for Social Security and changing Medicare and Medicaid programs to reduce costs.

Their highly anticipated report may make specific recommendations, or its members may be unable to reach any consensus and could just recommend more studies.

Federal debt held by the public — the result of accumulated annual deficits — was expected to be $9 trillion at the end of the last fiscal year, according to an August report by the Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan government agency. That is just above 60 percent of gross domestic product.

Many analysts and elected leaders have worried that as the debt-to-GDP ratio climbs higher, the costs of financing the debt could increase and global credit markets could begin losing faith in America’s ability to pay for it. Greece’s recent credit crisis was brought on by debt-to GDP ratios approaching or exceeding 100 percent.

“We are headed toward fiscal bankruptcy. It’s no longer an issue that is over the horizon. It is no more than five to seven years away,’’ said Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, the highest-ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee and a member of the deficit-review panel.

Asked whether he thought Republicans and Democrats could work together on the issue, Gregg said: “I don’t know the answer to that question. I don’t think anyone does. What is clear is that the American people have sent a message in the most definitive way I have ever seen that they want the deficit brought under control and they want the debt brought down.’’

Conservative Republicans today are haunted by the size of deficits run up during the administration of George W. Bush.

Fueled by tax cuts, two wars, rapid health care inflation, and more, the projected Fiscal Year 2009 deficit when Obama assumed office was $1.1 trillion (and it grew to $1.4 trillion for that year, as the cost of the economic stimulus package began to take its bite).

Critics say the Bush administration’s approach to fiscal policy was summed up in a statement attributed by former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill to former Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney said, according to O’Neill, that “deficits don’t matter.’’

“It was a very serious, serious error, because it was that kind of thinking that laid the foundation for this fiscal mess we are in now,’’ said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, an economic research firm.