A child caught doing something they shouldn’t be will often justify their actions by saying “everybody’s doing it,” to which their parents reply “if everybody was jumping off a cliff, would you do it, too?”

The battle between Gov. Mark Sanford and the S.C. General Assembly and its allies over the federal stimulus money reminds me of that exchange. Until ordered to do so by the S.C. Supreme Court, Sanford had refused to request the $700 million arguing that it would help devalue the dollar, increase debt and do nothing to address the state’s long-term financial problems. He said he would only ask for it if it could be used to reduce the state’s debt and this was rejected by the Obama administration.

The General Assembly and its allies, however, argued that the money was needed to help the state’s school districts avoid laying off teachers. They said that since the state would have to help pay it back anyway, they should go ahead and get the money and spend it now.

Watching this battle unfold, it seemed to me that the General Assembly and its allies had taken the role of the youth arguing that they should be allowed to do what everybody else was doing. Sanford is the parent, arguing that going along with the crowd was no justification for engaging in potentially disastrous behavior.

I’m not a fan of Sanford because of his repeated attempts to close USC-Union on fiscal grounds. In this case, however, I’m on his side because I think Washington’s program of stimulus spending and bailouts and the oceans of red ink, deficits and long-term debt they’re generating are a time bomb which will wreck this country’s economy for decades to come.

The American people have gotten the message about debt and spending beyond their means but the politicians in Washington and — I’m sorry to say — Columbia haven’t. Families throughout this country are working to pay off their debts and save more of their money. They are painfully relearning the wisdom of past generations about being neither a borrower nor a lender. The time-honored practices of living within your means, paying-as-you-go and putting something aside for a rainy day are supplanting the living beyond your means atop a pyramid of debt like there’s no tomorrow chimeras of recent years.

Even as the American people wise up, most politicians continue to rely on pork barrel spending to rescue them from the consequences of their policies. Politicians hate to level with the voters because it means telling them they have to eat more broccoli, less ice cream and pay for the former after promising them an endless supply of the latter, paid for by somebody else. With a few notable exceptions like Sanford, they instead sign on to a scheme that promises to help them avoid telling the truth and risking the wrath of voters who find broccoli in their ice cream cones.

The worst kind of politicians, though, are those like Barack Obama, who admit the government is broke and facing a catastrophic debt burden caused by decades of spending and borrowing yet insist on more spending financed by more borrowing. The disconnect between their words and actions are a reminder that John Adams didn’t go far enough when he said government was neither reason nor eloquence, but force. He should have added that it is also insanity because of its constant insistence on pursuing the same failed policies in hopes that the next time they’ll produce a successful outcome.

It won’t. Its only achievement will be to buy our irresponsible political leaders a little more time to avoid the day of reckoning. Barring a miracle, the American people will be squeezed even harder by a collapsing economy and a government desperate to find more revenue.

When that happens, I hope the people of South Carolina will remember who the politicians were that urged them to do what everybody else doing. I hope the people of America will remember who authored this disaster and not allow themselves to be conned again by a smooth line read off a teleprompter.