To sink or swim? That is the $15 trillion question.

It’s now up to the American people to decide whether the American experiment in self-government will stay afloat through reason and sacrifice or else sink into oblivion as a result of self-deception and greed.

For a long time it looked like greed would win — not the supposed greed of people who succeed through hard work and smart decisions, but the greed of those who want something for nothing, who think that life owes them a good education, nice house, nutritious meals and an easy ride.

That certainly is not what was intended when the United States of America was founded. In fact, it is the opposite of the principle of liberty espoused by Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin. It matters little whether the people looking for a free ride are royalty or the so-called proletariat. In either case, the free ride comes at the expense of the labor of someone else, usually the middle class, and thus at the expense of their liberty.

So whether it is a king living the life of luxury in a palace or it is a welfare mother using food stamps and government handouts to subsidize 60-inch flat-screen TVs, Xbox game systems, and brand-new automobiles, it is a reflection of the exact same sense of entitlement. The king and the welfare mom both think they don’t have to work, and you do.

Fortunately, we don’t have to work for the king anymore, but we still have to work to support those who don’t want to work for themselves and for those who think they are entitled to more than they can afford.

For a while, the system even seemed to work. That was thanks to the Baby Boom after World War II. With more and more people entering the work force, the tax base kept growing fast enough to pay for the also rapidly increasing entitlements that federal law granted to everyone lucky enough to be born in America.

But that was then; this is now.

Now we have a shrinking or stagnant work force and a growing list of obligations — in particular the burgeoning obligations of a national debt rapidly approaching $15 trillion.

Ironically, one of the causes of the declining tax base in the last 30 years that has led to the debt crisis is the liberal abortion policy that has resulted in something like 50 million potential taxpayers not making it out of the womb alive (or in the case of partial-birth abortion, not for long).

But even under the best of circumstances, eventually every budget runs out of money. When this happens in a family or a business, dire decisions are made. Purchases long anticipated are delayed or done away with altogether. Employees are laid off. Vacations are canceled. Yard sales are held. Everyone understands that you can’t spend money you don’t have.

But that is not the model for national governments. In fact, thanks to Keynesian economics, spending money you don’t have is actually encouraged. The worse off you get, the more money you spend.

It might even work — for a while.

Except for one fly in the ointment — human nature.

Because we do not just have to spend money to meet our current debts. As a result of the greed factor, we also have to spend money on new debts that are incurred by the spiraling expectations of the welfare class for more privileges and more fulfillment of “human rights.”

And of course because the middle class is not a bunch of dummies, they eventually see the allure of being paid not to work, or being subsidized to obtain goods and services that are otherwise unrealistic. Thus the welfare class grows exponentially with the amount of money being allocated. Eventually you reach a point of absolute insolvency, at which time the system collapses.

The only chance to avoid this fate is to face facts — something which human nature seems to stubbornly resist.

That, dear friends, is where we find ourselves in the year 2011. And it is now up to our beloved representatives in Congress to either introduce the American public to fiscal reality or to sign our economic death warrant.

Republicans in Congress seem to understand this — at least some of them do. Democrats, on the other hand, seem to think the debt star hurtling toward Earth is just more pie in the sky. They will keep spending other people’s money until they are flattened.

It’s probably unfair to blame either Republicans or Democrats at this point. It is for the most part an almost universal delusion that we can justify spending money on any “good cause” for the simple reason that it is “good.” If families operated under such a simplistic premise, then we would eat lobster and filet mignon every night instead of hamburgers and spaghetti.

The problem, in essence, is that under the pressure of socialism’s plaintive wail in the 19th century, we slowly began to replace economic necessity with social justice as the basis for our spending decisions. That transition became much more rapid with the New Deal, and today is as devilishly fast as any expressway to hell.

A few statesmen have resisted the temptation to buy votes with government lucre, but they are few and far between. One who might, in hindsight, be classed as a great president was Democrat Grover Cleveland, who served two terms as president (from 1885-1889 and from 1893-1897) and won the popular vote three times.

Cleveland was noted for his commitment to classical liberalism, especially for the principles of limited government and constitutional protection of individual liberties. He was also noted for his honesty, courage and integrity. It is these characteristics which seem to be lacking in many of today’s leaders.

Pay attention especially to Cleveland’s words from 1887 when he vetoed a bill to provide Texas farmers with a government handout to assist them in times of drought. You can be sure the president did not hate Texas farmers, but apparently he was not convinced that spending money on a “good cause” was always necessary and in the best interests of society. In fact, he expressly thought it might hurt society, as he wrote in his veto note:

“I feel obliged to withhold my approval of the plan, as proposed by this bill, to indulge a benevolent and charitable sentiment through the appropriation of public funds for that purpose. I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of general suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit. ... Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of common brotherhood.”

Although Cleveland was proven correct by history, his point of view unfortunately did not prevail — to the point where we now — all of us to some extent — depend servilely on the “paternal care ... of the government” for our well-being, and have watched the “bonds of common brotherhood” be replaced with the handcuffs of forced charity.

And the best that the Republicans in Congress can come up with to slay the debt dragon is a measly $32 billion. Pathetic. Of course, that is $32 billion more than the Democrats are going to offer.

Trouble is, the only way to cut more than that is to summon up those qualities that Grover Cleveland was noted for — honesty, courage and integrity. Someone has to tell the American public that there is no such thing as a free lunch. A few of us know that already, but so many people are eating at the public trough that they can’t be bothered with a lesson in harsh economic reality.

In 1776, the American people rebelled against a king — demanding that he stop exploiting their labor for his wealth. Today, the American people will either rebel against the tyranny of entitlement which chains them to the federal government, or else they will succumb to the same sad fate that befalls all who sow the wind.

They will reap the whirlwind.