The following is an opinion column written by the news editor of the Reading Eagle.

“John Forester: Losing his faith in elected leaders

“I’ve always had respect for our form of government. But lately I’ve been wondering if we should be entrusting the task of running the country to politicians.

“Over the years, I’ve seen politicians who were boneheadedly inept, some who were simply wrongheaded and others who were outright corrupt.

“Still, I held the belief that the country was mostly in the hands of intelligent, well-meaning people who were working for the common good.

“Now I’m having doubts.

“It’s because of this ‘fiscal cliff,’ an unfortunate term to describe the sudden, uncontrolled plummet in federal spending accompanied by an equally fast assent in tax rates.

“No Democrat or Republican in Congress wants this to happen. Both sides are talking only about spending cuts or tax increases. The GOP still wants the former and the Democrats want the latter.

“Actually, it’s all about control: Both want it.

“Last week, U.S. Rep. Joe Pitts, a Chester County Republican whose district includes Reading, in a memo sent to constituents, threw another log on the fire by saying it’s not just about taxes and spending. It’s about the national debt.

“Pitts pointed to our $16.3 trillion debt as though it were a falling sky. Quick, we’ve got to get out from under it before it hits us. Then he proceeded to blame Congress for failing to avoid or fix specific problems like Medicare, unemployment benefits, Social Security and Obamacare.

“Pitts laid out a plan to fix all of the mistakes that caused the debt. His plan? Don’t make them in the first place.

“I found myself agreeing until he used the household metaphor. He said:

“‘If the government were a typical American household earning $65,000 a year, then they would have spent over $108,000, putting more than $43,000 on their credit card this year alone. All told, that family would have $493,000 in credit card debt.’

“Whoa, there, metaphor man.

“Both sides in this game are using the same household metaphor, and occasionally the nation-as-a-business metaphor, to prove different points.

“The fact is the U.S. is not a household, the people a family and the government is not there to make a profit.

“We can disagree what the nation, its people and government is, but we can agree on what it isn’t.

“And when people start telling us things we know to be untrue, they’ve lost something: Our trust.“