On a warm Fourth of July afternoon, thoughts bubbled up about the American way of life, the independence we usually take for granted, and the rarely considered costs of all those freedoms.

One of the costs is our government’s need to balance income and expenses just as millions of American families do every day. In the lofty world of Washington, D.C., this need has been abandoned, in good times and bad, for many years.

The very people we elect to represent us have mortgaged and re-mortgaged our country in an attempt to win our support. We now owe more than $14 trillion, a sum almost beyond counting, and we probably could sell all our national parks and throw in a few million acres of federal forest land and still come up short.

We could discuss ad nauseum how and why this came to pass, but it serves no purpose. The federal government currently spends about 25 percent of the Gross National Product per year and takes in about 15 percent. That is a huge difference, whether you’re talking dollars, rupees or onions.

It takes no genius to understand we are heading for ruin, just as it should be obvious to all that there can be no painless solution. Yet we find ourselves listening to simplistic nonsense from two groups of politicians who talk past each other and look past the abyss just ahead. They may fool themselves into thinking they’re good talkers, but we know from the lack of results that they are not good leaders.

In December 1776, when the fervor for freedom had met the cold reality of winter, Thomas Paine wrote “The American Crisis.” In it, he said, “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country.”

Nearly 235 years later, our country faces a crisis of a different and more subtle kind, but truly a crisis. Our officials could, as the media puts it, kick the can down the road, and save the problem for later.

We are told by many that the problems are easily handled, not to worry, if the opposing side will only see reason. The litany goes on and the time passes and the inaction continues. Have we really elected summer soldiers and sunshine patriots?

Somewhere along the way, the government has gone astray, thinking annual deficits are fine as long as they are not really obscene. It’s a sign of our governmental obesity. Complexity breeds with obfuscation to create a massive backlash that seemingly cannot be untangled. The tax code is a good example; exemptions for all constituencies and thousands of pages to be misinterpreted by everyone. Has our wonderful and free nation simply become ungovernable by democratic means?

Virtually every person or group involved in sorting out the debt ceiling crisis has an agenda. Otherwise, logic could prevail and decisions could be made that would lead us out of the ditch and back on the road.

For example, you could look at the 15 percent of GDP we take in and the 25 percent of GDP we spend and split it down the middle. That’s what any horse trader would do. So you end up taking in 20 percent and spending 20 percent and eventually inflation helps us climb from the ditch.

That’s what is called a balanced budget. Most people know exactly how it works. They also know that even if it’s no fun, it’s necessary to their survival.

Over the years, the idea of a balanced budget has surfaced many times, only to be harpooned by politicians who claim it would destroy the flexibility needed to fine-tune the government. They claim it would hinder their ability to spend a bit more in bad times and save a bit more in good times. That argument, of course, has been proven false by the acts of the politicians of both parties.

Maybe what they need is a set of rules that would enforce the discipline they can’t seem to muster, even in a crisis. Perhaps this would help them color inside the lines.

Both parties have claimed to seek a big solution for our debt woes instead of a short-term bandage. It’s probably just more of the posturing they think their supporters expect.

In case some of them are serious about a big solution, let’s see them vote themselves into a financial straight-jacket that we all can understand. Let’s see them actually balance the budget over the next couple of years and keep it that way. Can it actually be done or it just a dream on a sunny summer afternoon?

Jack Becklund lives in Bingham. He has written three books, “Golden Fleece,” “Summers with the Bears” and “After the Leaves Fall.”

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