Pay less, want more

Put another way, just gimme. For all the fury about sky-high deficits, Americans still want government to provide lots of stuff - even if they're not willing to pay for it. Taxes have fallen to 15 percent of the GDP, a 60-year low, but you're not hearing anyone call for cuts on prescription drugs, farm subsidies, military spending or Social Security. NYT columnist Dave Leonhardt says that "this disconnect is, far and away, the main reason for our huge budget problems."

For now, political leaders in both parties are still in denial about what the solution will entail. To be fair, so is much of the public. What needs to happen? Spending will need to be cut, and taxes will need to rise. They won't need to rise just on households making more than $250,000, as Mr. Obama has suggested. They will probably need to rise on your household, however much you make.

How much? A roughly 50 percent increase, according to an analysis by economists Alan Auerbach and William Gale. That might not be as devastating as it sounds - tax increases, contrary to what we often hear, are not inherently bad. It's just that they have to be done right, as do the spending cuts. The biggest challenge, of course, is the politics.

I'll confess that I have a hard time seeing how any of this will happen in the next few years, no matter what the deficit commission recommends. Congressional Republicans have shown little willingness to consider any tax increases, and Mr. Obama has shown no indication of breaking his $250,000-and-under pledge. We voters, meanwhile, tend to oppose government spending in general while supporting the government programs that the spending pays for.