We're well into the dreary season of televised hatchet jobs when politicians try to outdo one another at throwing half-truths at the opposition.

It must work, because they keep doing it election after election.

I'd like to see someone stand up and give the American public a strong dose of candor. It might not win the election, but at least it would give us some reality to chew on between crises.

Here are some things an honest and candid politician (an oxymoron?) might say:

* Lower taxes won't cure what ails this country. Our taxes are pretty high when you add up what we're paying to the federal, state and local governments. But in most countries, the average citizen would love to live on what the average American has left over after taxes.

* Cutting spending won't work unless we're willing to do without a lot of the things that make living more comfortable. The things that absorb most of our tax dollars are not handouts to the deadbeats, bridges to nowhere or subsidies to scientists studying the mating habits of the Australian witchetty grub. Our money is going out to pay for national defense, Medicare, Social Security, interest on the national debt and other programs most of us want to keep in place (the national debt excepted).

Yet, critics are spot on when they tell us we can't go on piling up debt for future generations to pay off. We can afford deficit spending as long as our gross domestic product keeps pace with the size of our debt. You probably owe considerably more now than you did when you first began earning but, if you've budgeted responsibly, you're also earning more now and can manage it more comfortably.

* By historical standards, we're making plenty of money. The problem is what we're spending it on. We can cut taxes and drastically trim government expenditures. Or we can cut our living standards and continue benefiting from Social Security, Medicare, and health care.

If we ditch all those government-paid social programs that we've grown accustomed to over the past 60 years, will we suddenly find ourselves awash in spendable income? Will the average Joe choose to put his newly liberated cash into IRAs, health insurance, long-term-care insurance and other investments in the future?

Not if the present is any model.

While we complain about the pinch of taxes, we're indulging ourselves in an orgy of private consumption.

The big financial houses weren't the sole villains in the housing bust that threatened to send is into depression. The people who bought those McMansions, taking on debt beyond their means, were also guilty. The members of Congress who voted to bail out the banks should not bear the major share of blame; they were simply saving us from ourselves.

A drive through any run-of-the-mill neighborhood on a working day will show how heedlessly we spend money on things we don't really need. Although everybody appears to be away at work, yards and driveways are crammed with cars, vans, SUVs and pick-ups. Where once America lived comfortably with one car per family, we now insist on one car per family member. A public investment in public transportation might be cost-effective if we were willing to use public transportation. But we won't use it as long as we can borrow the money to keep two, three or four vehicles per family on the road.

We are addicted to technology. Households can't get by without a plethora of electronic equipment that would have sufficed for a carrier group during World War II. We can't get by with ordinary television screens. We need humongous screens that rival the screens people of my generation saw in outdoor theaters. To accommodate those screens, we can't get by with ordinary living rooms; we need entertainment centers, complete with surround sound.

Americans have developed a phobia for privacy. We need to have voice or visual contact with somebody at all times of the day. You can see it at stoplights, in bank lines, at Wal-Mart checkouts: People are talking via cell phone even when they have nothing of real substance to say. And when they're not talking to somebody, they're listening to music beamed into their ears from outer space.

In 50 years, we've gone from party-line telephones to a landline for the family and a cell phone/camera/camcorder/minicomputer for each family member. We're not paying cash for these amenities. We're paying for them with consumer debt, and with monthly bills that eat into our incomes.

There's nothing wrong with owning and using these products of 21st-century technology as long as we can afford them on current income. There is something wrong with regarding them as entitlements — things we have a right to own regardless of our financial means.

These private entitlements are just as corrosive of our national economic well-being as the entitlements politicians love to rail against in the national budget. We can't address either problem by trimming around the edges. If you're living in a mansion on a bungalow budget and driving a new Escalade on a used-Escort budget, you can't adjust things by turning out the lights when you leave a room, setting the thermostat on 68 in winter and 78 in summer, or patronizing the "buy-one-get-one-free" racks at Bi-Lo.

Same goes for our national spending. If we're going to cut the budget and lower taxes, we're going to have to do without things we'd really rather have.

Somebody needs to prepare the American public for the fact that, one way or another, we're going to have to develop a new ethic that will call for significant lifestyle adjustments. The changes may come in government services we like or in private amenities we've come to expect.

Or we can go on living on borrowed money. Which means we'd also be living on borrowed time.

Readers may write Gene Owens at 315 Lakeforest Circle, Anderson SC 29625, or e-mail him at WadesDixieco@AOL.com