The more reactions I see to the deficit commission’s proposals the more convinced I am that it will take a Greece-style meltdown to convince people that things have to drastically change.

Criticism of the plan is fine. I expressed my own concerns over some tax provisions. But I’m willing to listen, consider, and maybe even compromise on some provisions if it means getting the country back on solid fiscal ground. I figured others would be willing to do the same.

Nope. The full commission itself is likely to disapprove of the plan; not because of fiscal concerns but because of political considerations. Congressional Democrats have come out strongly, with Dick Durbin saying they won’t even allow a full up-or-down vote in the Senate.

Even some Republicans, who talk a good game but aren’t willing to take the leap, are bucking at provisions like Social Security reform. Why? Because Social Security is considered the third rail of American politics. Touch it an your career dies. Or so we’re told.

And maybe they’re right. Americans may not be ready to face the facts yet. They’re not willing to come to terms with the fact that we have unfunded liabilities of more than $100 trillion — trillion with a “t” — from Social Security, Medicare, and and prescription drugs. Let me put that into perspective. That’s a liability of more than $1 million PER TAXPAYER.

Maybe Americans aren’t ready to come to grips with the fact that we owe $13.7 trillion in debt, or $44,000 per person. You have four people in your house? Four people of any age? Your household’s debt load is $176,000. Just in federal debt. And we’re continuing to rack it up at a rate of $1.3 trillion per year.

Maybe Americans want to continue living under the lie that we’re in the mess we’re in because of military spending. Our total expenditure for defense this year is about $687 billion. We’ve spent about $1.5 trillion on Social Security and Medicare alone. You could cut every last cent from the defense budget and we’d still have a huge deficit and growing debt.

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The problem can’t be solved until we get serious. Entitlement programs need to be reformed, and simply raising taxes doesn’t qualify as reform. Young people need to understand that Social Security won’t be there for them. People working now have to understand that they’ll be working a couple of more years. Americans have to understand that we can’t afford the entitlement state. We just can’t.

Only then can we crack down on the national deficit and debt. You can cut all of the pork projects you want, reduce all of the defense spending you want, and cut all of the non-defense discretionary spending you want. And we’ll still be screwed. Until we get serious about entitlements.

We’re not yet serious.