I do not like voting for a third-party candidate who stands no chance of victory, but I cannot bring myself to choose, once again, between the lesser of the two evils put forward by our major political parties.

Our country is at a crucial crossroads in preparing for our future, and I cannot help but feeling our two candidates are ignoring the 800-pound gorilla in the room: our broken federal budget.

Our federal government has lately been hemorrhaging money, and it is imperative we elect a candidate who can stop the bleeding. It would be prudent to elect a candidate who would focus on cutting spending; of the 20 or so major party presidential candidates who stepped forward in the primaries, you would think the socialist would be the last person to elect for this job, yet this is exactly who we are poised to elect. Bravo, America.

BARACK OBAMA HAS proposed spending increases across the board, which would substantially grow the size of our federal government, yet his tax proposals do not come close to compensating for his spending proposals to yield a balanced budget. About the only area Obama has proposed to cut spending is the "$10 billion per month we are spending on Iraq." Perhaps that's a start, though I would point out we are spending over twice that per month in interest on our national debt.

That's right: We will spend approximately $261 billion this year paying interest on our national debt. That's more than we will spend on the Departments of Education, Homeland Security, Labor, Interior, Transportation, Treasury, Energy, Justice, Agriculture, and Housing and Urban Development combined . That's 10 cents of every federal tax dollar that will not be going to our schools, our roads, our national defense, our farmers, or any other federal program or entity. It is money being siphoned overseas as a result of our many years of fiscal irresponsibility.

JOHN MCCAIN HAS demonstrated he is not a viable alternative to Obama to balance our budget. He proposes tax cuts for 100 percent of Americans, though his spending proposals, if brought to fruition, would also yield a net growth in our nation's spending. It is difficult to imagine a policy more irresponsible than to cut taxes for 100 percent of Americans while our government is running record deficits.

THE REPUBLICAN theory is that cutting taxes would paradoxically increase gross tax revenue by stimulating our economy; however, this myth has been exposed by our current president, who has doubled our national debt over the last eight years espousing this same philosophy.

But negligent budget management is hardly limited to our government. Living beyond our means permeates our culture, from our greedy, failing financial institutions on Wall Street, to the average American who has thousands of dollars in credit card debt so he may keep up with the Joneses. And when election year rolls around, the candidates appeal to our wallets and bank accounts, by promising to lower our taxes while still showering us with government benefits, and we end up with immense budget deficits on an annual basis.

THE STARK REALITIES of our accumulating debt are continually pushed aside to be dealt with by a later generation. But our nation's fiscal status is nearing a breaking point, as our baby boomer generation approaches Medicare and Social Security age while our national debt snowballs. America's prosperity is on a steady downward slide as our nation's wealth is being squandered by the burden of our ever-rising debt and its associated interest payments.

We are already seeing our dollar begin to weaken largely because of this. If you think our cost of living has room for improvement now, wait until after a few more decades of our fiscal policies wreaking havoc on our dollar.

This election day, vote for the candidates with the soundest fiscal policies. But no matter who is elected, it is our responsibility as citizens and taxpayers to hold our elected leaders to a higher standard than to what we are accustomed. We must continually pressure them to make the right decisions with a goal of balancing our budget and halting our fiscal free-fall. Our nation's future prosperity depends on it.