.floatimg-left-hort { float:left; } .floatimg-left-caption-hort { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:300px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-vert { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right:15px; width:200px;} .floatimg-left-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; font-size: 12px; width:200px;} .floatimg-right-hort { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px;} .floatimg-right-caption-hort { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px; font-size: 12px; } .floatimg-right-vert { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px;} .floatimg-right-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; font-size: 12px; } .floatimgright-sidebar { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; border-top-style: double; border-top-color: black; border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-color: black;} .floatimgright-sidebar p { line-height: 115%; text-indent: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar h4 { font-variant:small-caps; } .pullquote { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 150px; background: url(http://www.dmbusinessdaily.com/DAILY/editorial/extras/closequote.gif) no-repeat bottom right !important ; line-height: 150%; font-size: 125%; border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} .floatvidleft { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatvidright { float:right; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} At the Business Record’s annual Economic Forecast event last week, Iowa Auditor David Vaudt laid out the growing gap between revenues and spending in the state, with the outgo easily outpacing the income. That’s certainly true of the nation as a whole, too.

Then Principal Global Investors economist Robert Baur reminded the audience that life does, indeed, get better and better in the United States. We complain, but we wouldn’t want to go back to the standards of 1970 in any part of our lives, he pointed out correctly. We live with more comfort and luxury than our ancestors could have imagined.

The economic challenge facing us all is to put those two trends together and find a sensible way to move forward.

We have homes stuffed full of toys and luxury items and what we used to call “labor-saving devices,” but we can’t keep our highways and bridges in good repair. We’ll spend anything to support our favorite sports teams, but we can’t afford an adequate number of troopers for the Iowa State Patrol. We drive to our fitness clubs and undergo cosmetic surgery at a rapid pace, but millions of Americans go without health insurance.

So what does that tell us? That we can afford to pay even more in taxes? Nobody wants to hear that.

If it’s hard to call for higher taxes, it’s almost automatic to argue that we need to refocus our spending, cut waste and put the savings to better use.

But we already have a spending gap to grapple with, so it would take an unimaginable amount of cost-cutting to first patch that leak, then address the important needs that we’ve been neglecting.

It’s a philosophical question as much as a financial one. What’s the value of a well-educated population? How much is public safety worth? Put a price tag on the nation’s compassion.

We’ve been adding infrastructure and raising expectations for decades. What do you want to do next?