There was time when Americans would be ashamed of the fact that they couldn’t pay their bills.  No more.  David Brooks’ column in the New York Times discusses the emergence of a culture of debt over the last 30 years that has undermined our traditional disdain for flagrant self-indulgence.

The United States has been an affluent nation since its founding. But the country was, by and large, not corrupted by wealth. For centuries, it remained industrious, ambitious and frugal.

Over the past 30 years, much of that has been shredded. The social norms and institutions that encouraged frugality and spending what you earn have been undermined. The institutions that encourage debt and living for the moment have been strengthened. The country’s moral guardians are forever looking for decadence out of Hollywood and reality TV. But the most rampant decadence today is financial decadence, the trampling of decent norms about how to use and harness money.

As we are bombarded by the daily news of home foreclosures compounded by the impact of rising gasoline prices, food and healthcare, one can’t help but wonder how we turned away from respect for thrift and frugality to become a bastion of flash, bling and shiny things. 

As our presidential candidates offer gimmicks and meaningless answers to pressing problems, never once suggesting that part of the solution is to tighten our belts, stop spending money we don’t have and put some away for a rainy day, it becomes clear that our economic condition will not change until some extraneous event bails us out.

We have run up a national debt the likes of which are unfathomable in the history of man.  We have run up personal debt that has jeopardized the welfare of millions of Americans.  In both instances, there is blame to be levied so that we learn from these egregious errors.  But there aren’t many people brave enough to tell these many debtors that they were wrong.  It would make them angry. It would make them feel badly.  We wouldn’t want people to feel badly, especially if we want their vote.

Brooks explains the role the government has played in the destruction of our nation’s financial mores:

The agents of destruction are many. State governments have played a role. They aggressively hawk their lottery products, which some people call a tax on stupidity. Twenty percent of Americans are frequent players, spending about $60 billion a year. The spending is starkly regressive. A household with income under $13,000 spends, on average, $645 a year on lottery tickets, about 9 percent of all income. Aside from the financial toll, the moral toll is comprehensive. Here is the government, the guardian of order, telling people that they don’t have to work to build for the future. They can strike it rich for nothing.

There’s the answer.  We can all play the lottery and win ourselves out of the mess.  Well, maybe there’s something wrong with that solution. 

Congress and the White House have played a role. The nation’s leaders have always had an incentive to shove costs for current promises onto the backs of future generations. It’s only now become respectable to do so.

Respectable doesn’t even begin to express it.  We demand services now with the price tag left for the future.  Somehow, we’ve steeled ourselves to the reality that we are living on borrowed cash, and walled off our reason from recognizing that it’s going to collapse someday.  We can live with it happening to our children, as long as it doesn’t happen to us.  We’re free-riding, and we like it.

Wall Street has played a role. Bill Gates built a socially useful product to make his fortune. But what message do the compensation packages that hedge fund managers get send across the country?

Aren’t we all entitled to $6000 shower curtains?  Isn’t that what makes us important and worthwhile?  Certainly, it’s worth our while to go into debt to watch Oprah on a 60″ flat screen hi-def TV.  Andy Warhol predicted that everyone would enjoy 15 minutes of fame.  Shouldn’t we all enjoy 15 minutes of life like a hedge fund manager, right before we lose our home?

It’s not that I’m an advocate for the Puritan ethic.  We need not live in painful frugality, buying day old bread and scraping the bottom of the peanut butter jar until we wear through the plastic.  But that’s a long way from spending money you don’t have, knowing that you are unlikely to ever have the ability to pay it off.  The pride can now be found in driving the fancy car, if only you could afford the gas.  There is no longer any shame attached.

So what do you call a presidential candidate who speaks the truth, tells the American public that we’ve been playing Russian Roulette with our future and have finally caught the bullet? 

The loser.