Here's one way to look at the politics of our era: We've moved from The Age of Leverage to The Great Unwinding. For about a generation, the U.S. surfed on a growing wave of debt. The ratio of debt-to-personal-disposable income was 55 percent in 1960. Since then, it has more than doubled, reaching 133 percent in 2007. Total credit market debt -- throwing in corporate, financial and other borrowing -- has risen apace, surging from 143 percent of GDP in 1951 to 350 percent of GDP last year. Charts that mark these trends are truly horrifying. There is a steady level of debt through most of the 20th century, until the mid-1980s. Then there is a steep accelerating rise to today's epic levels. This rise in debt fueled a consumption binge. Consumption as a share of GDP stood at around 62 percent in the mid-1960s, and rose to about 73 percent by 2008. The baby boomers enjoyed an incredible spending binge. Meanwhile the Chinese, Japanese and European economies became reliant on the overextended U.S. consumer. It couldn't last. The leverage wave crashed last fall. Facing the possibility of systemic collapse, the government stepped in and replaced private borrowing with public borrowing. The Federal Reserve printed money at incredible rates, and federal spending ballooned. In 2007, the federal deficit was 1.2 percent of GDP. Two years later, it's at 13 percent. The crisis response more or less worked. Historians will argue about the Paulson-Geithner-Bernanke reaction, but the economy seems to be stabilizing. And now attention turns to the task of the next decade: slowly unwinding the debt that has built up over the past generation. American's aren't borrowing the way they used to, but the accumulated debt is still there. Over the next many years, Americans will have to save more and borrow less. The American economy will have to transition from an economy based on consumption and imports to an economy with a greater balance of business investment and production. A country that has become accustomed to reasonably fast growth and frothy affluence will probably have to adjust to slower growth and less retail fizz. The economic challenges will be hard. Reuven Glick and Kevin J. Lansing of the San Francisco Fed estimate that Americans will have to increase their household savings rate from 4 percent to 10 percent by 2018 to restore balance. That, they write, will produce 'a near-term drag on overall economic activity.' Meanwhile, capital and labor will have to flow from sectors that depend on discretionary consumption to sectors based on research and investment. But it's the political challenges that will be most hellacious. Basically, everything that a politician might do to make voters happier in the near term will have horrible long-term consequences. Stimulate the economy too much now and you wind up with ruinous inflation down the road. Preserve failing companies and you wind up with Japanese stagnation. Cushion the decline in living standards with easy money now and you just move from a housing bubble to a commodities bubble. The members of the political class face a set of monumental tasks. First, they have to persuade a country to postpone gratification for the sake of rebuilding the country. This country hasn't accepted sacrifice in 50 years. Second, political leaders will have to raise taxes and cut spending to get the federal fiscal house in order, and they will have to do it at a time when voters are already scaling back their lifestyles. Third, they will have to refrain from doing anything that might further damage America's fiscal position, which is extremely fragile. That means not passing a health care reform package unless it is really and truly paid for. That means forming a Social Security commission next year to tackle that entitlement problem. Fourth, the political class is going to attempt the politically unthinkable. The U.S. is going to have to move toward a consumption tax, to discourage spending and encourage savings. There's also a crying need for tax reform. As economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin points out, the tax code is rife with provisions that encourage leverage and discourage investment. The government will have to spend less on transfer payments and more on investments in science and infrastructure. The members of the Obama administration fully understand this and are brimming with good ideas about how to move from a bubble economy to an investment economy. Finding a political strategy to accomplish this, however, is proving to be very difficult. And getting Congress to move in this direction might be impossible. Congressional leaders have been fixated on short-term conventional priorities throughout this entire episode. There is no evidence that the power brokers understand the fundamental transition ahead. They are practicing the same self-indulgence that got us into this mess. 