Politicians, of course, typically “lead” by holding their fingers firmly to the wind.

Being elected is important; being re-elected (again and again) is super important. Neither will happen without lots of campaign cash, which will require slavishly—and often foolishly—parroting a preferred narrative with only minimal reference to reality because this tactic will win the loyalty of one group of voters or another who want some money, have a grievance, or (as is typically the case) have a grievance they insist can only be fixed with money.

This is politics in a nutshell. All the rest is platitudes and lies.

This would not matter all that much—we have, after all, stumbled through 250 years of remarkable success despite often being led by roaring mediocrities—if we had simply remembered to keep our budgets balanced and voter expectations reasonable. However, having devoted the past fifty years to spending while promising everything to everybody regardless of cost or outcomes, we’re now in a bit of a pickle. Our national credit card is maxed out, but everyone still wants their “free” stuff.

Our cumulative federal debt has surpassed the $40 trillion mark and is still climbing at a terrifying rate. Worse still, a good portion of our economic activity has long depended on borrowing and spending, which is rapidly becoming an untenable strategy. A half-century of speculative frenzy (see: residential and commercial real estate, higher education, and healthcare) and spectacular malinvestment (see: residential and commercial real estate, higher education, and healthcare—again) is crashing down around us. The federal money float that turned $35,000 ranch houses into $650,000 ranch houses, launched the staffing and salary bloat that has made the price of a college education skyrocket, and turned healthcare costs into a budget buster, which is evident in the exploding expenses of Medicare, Medicaid, and personal health insurance plans, will soon be drying up—because we now have no choice.

We have learned a painful national lesson about the dangers of listening to the blathering of Economics professors, who love spinning stupid theories on their way to tenure. Keynesian stimulus spending—and the spiraling government debt that results—only serves to allow businesses to raise prices while simultaneously providing lucrative employment for a very happy army of government bureaucrats whose primary function, as it turns out, is to shepherd a gigantic pot of money for insiders and crooks to rob.

Therefore, we can stop being shocked and start being a bit smarter about waving around wads of cash for the unscrupulous to snatch. The frauds all around us are the inevitable side effect of drunken government spending—and the fiscal hangover has already started.

Office buildings today have a nasty habit of selling for pennies on the dollar. Our residential real estate markets have devolved into a perverse game of chicken between increasingly wary buyers and desperately obstinate sellers, both of whom are waiting to see who will blink first. Colleges and universities are enduring angry blowback about wildly expensive degrees that turn out to be fast tracks to waiting tables. Big Pharma and their drug dealers wearing white coats and stethoscopes are each feeling the heat over treatments that cost a small fortune, have loads of nasty side effects—and just might kill you.

Need I also mention that food is expensive, cars are expensive, clothing is expensive, and childcare is expensive? There is a reason that “affordability” is a now hot topic among our clueless political class, but the proposed solutions, such as they are, typically involve some not-so-subtle variation of continuing to steal from the future with more braindead legislation and ponderous bureaucracy that produces little other than more government debt.

Ironically, now that governmental stupidity has put us deep in this hole, we are stuck looking to government for solutions.

Unfortunately, the choices being offered by our two major political parties are notably unpalatable: continuing to hand over our tax dollars for the questionable benefits of a non-stop bludgeoning by yet more monopolistic crony Capitalism . . . or . . . being punched in the face by crazy Communists who salivate over reparations, state control of the economy, and Universal Basic Incomes because they are intellectually incapable of recognizing the immorality and impracticality of their policies. Both extremes are bad ideas no matter which way we might decide to turn, which explains a lot about today’s dismal, dysfunctional, and despairing economic climate.

Moderation has a hard time surviving an age where rage is far better clickbait than thoughtful and nuanced debate, so the obvious expedient of continuing the Trumpian policies of shrinking the size and scope of government is running into a wall of media misinformation and ideological idiocy. The crux of the problem now facing those who love borrowing and spending under the guise of helping Americans is that it is now becoming all too obvious that much of that “help” is quickly destroying our lives. The debt on our national credit card has provided the illusion of wealth, much as when someone goes nuts with the plastic in their own wallets, but poverty was never far behind.

The liars and cheaters now in the House and Senate, who are the last in a decades-long line of liars and cheaters who put us in this fix, are already hinting that Social Security payments will soon need to be reduced, so we can expect the cash scramble to intensify as the interest costs on our escalating federal debt continue to mount. Given that many states and cities are themselves into dire financial distress, the problems we are facing today are only a foretaste of what is soon to come. When the multi-trillion dollar injections of debt can no longer be pumped to our economy, we will very quickly find out whether our businesses and banking systems are capable of standing without the crutch provided by fifty years of fiscal fantasy.

Whether we fall, or merely stagger, during the impending fiscal crisis, which will be unlike any we have faced in 250 years of nationhood, will wholly depend on the quality of the leadership we have in place when the music stops. If we continue to elect those who focus on pointing fingers and deflecting blame, we may well be doomed. The next decade will require sober adults who can tell it like it is while being nimble—and, hopefully, noble—in their decisions. Being swayed by those whose allegiances are to one group of voters, rather than our country as a whole, will hurt.

The selfish stage of American politics must end if we are to survive as a country.