At this writing, Congress still has not made a decision on the government’s debt limit.

More importantly, they have not made visible progress on dealing with the national debt.

It isn’t just that the Republicans and Democrats are at odds over how to deal with the debt. Within the parties themselves, particularly among the Republicans, there are major disagreements over how to resolve the issue.

Moreover, both parties are more concerned with gaining political advantage than resolving the crisis. Both are simply playing, not just to their constituencies, but to the most extreme members of their constituencies.

The sad part of the whole affair is that there are some obvious truths that need to be considered, but aren’t.

First of all, it should be obvious to everyone that the problem can’t be solved without some sort of reform of Social Security and Medicare. Without reform, the two programs will end up obliviating any spending cuts Congress might be able to make.

Second, it should be equally obvious that somehow, whether through tax reform or tax increases, government revenue has to increase or the debt will not go away, and it probably will continue to grow.

Third, not even the most draconian of cuts nor tax increases will resolve the debt issue in a short time. And either action is likely to plunge the nation into an even deeper economic depression. Congress must find a way to stabilize the growth of the debt first, then look for ways to reduce it without sending the economy into more recession.

So far, the only reasonable proposal that acknowledges those truths is the one that has been buried, almost since the day it was issued, by senators and representatives more interested in scoring political points than in the welfare of the nation. It was contained in the report issued by the bi-partisan commission initiated by President Obama and headed by co-chairmen Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, the former Wyoming senator. That proposal contained $4.7 trillion in a combination of spending cuts and revenue increases over 10 years, slowing the growth of the debt. It was a truly bi-partisan proposal that spread the required sacrifice by everyone without killing the economy.

Instead of focusing on the next election, Congress should revisit the bi-partisan commission’s work and use it — tax increases, spending cuts and all — as a basis for an agreement and cut out the nonsense.

As Simpson and Bowles said of their report, “This is the time for heroes. The country is ready for leaders in Washington to put politics aside, pull together — not apart — put national interest ahead of political interests and put the next generation over the next election.”