Marking a day of Thanksgiving has been an annual event for Americans, with varying degrees of official sanction, since the 1620s. Confronting a national debt of some $15 trillion when we are running an annual deficit of $2.3 trillion is no easy task. Yet that is what a special congressional deficit panel, popularly called the Supercommittee, is supposed to do.

Their deadline to do so is a week from yesterday. If they succeed in proposing a plan, and if Congress passes that plan into law, they will have succeeded, and a week from today we can give thanks that our fiscal problems are on the road to a solution. If they do not, however, across-the-board cuts to the tune of $1.2 trillion will go into effect.

This is a chance for our representatives — and therefore, us — to redefine the role of government to suit our needs. It is a chance for us to prioritize spending and policy instead of continuing on our road to financial ruin or indiscriminately cutting spending. They should take that chance.

If Republicans and Democrats truly believe that now is the time to examine our support of programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, defense and the whole array of federal agencies that, depending on who you ask, take away our liberties or protect us, then they will propose measures, debate them, consider the effect on the interest of the whole United States, and propose amendments accordingly.

The goal is not to make sure that their districts receive as much pork as possible. It is not to ensure that one class is exempted from doing all they can to assist the country of which they are a part and from which they benefit so much.

Cutting an annual spending deficit of $2.3 trillion (we cannot in good conscience all it a budget deficit, because we haven’t had a budget — a clear, coherent vision of our direction in spending and policy — in years) by raising $300 billion in new taxes over 10 years or by cutting future deficits by $1.2 trillion over 10 years is not the way to fix a problem that exists today.

Legislators cannot predict the future. Experts cannot predict the future of their fields. Even if by some miracle they manage to do so, they rarely act accordingly. If they did, the current recession would not have happened. No disaster would ever have happened. What we need to do is consider the current budget year and raise taxes and cut spending (yes, we mean “and”) accordingly.

Instead of solving our own problems with our own actions, we are instead by this project expecting Time to solve them. It’s time to take destiny into our own hands.