It was an exercise without political cost, which, frankly, contributed to its level of success.

Students in India Meissel’s government class spent time this week in their own super-committees solving the nation’s budget problems. Unlike the deficit super committee comprising members of the House of Representatives from both political parties, these committees almost all succeeded in finding ways to cut the difference between what America spends and what it collects in taxes each year.

Of course, none of these students would face election-year television ads that accuse them of wanting senior citizens and children to suffer because they suggested shutting down some social program or called for cuts to entitlement spending. None would face the prospect of returning to Hampton Roads to justify a plan that would cut military spending. None would have to field the phone calls and emails of constituents frustrated over a move to raise taxes on some segment of society or another.

Those concerns are, of course, among the primary reasons that the real so-called “super committee” in Washington, D.C., utterly failed at its assigned task of cutting $1.5 trillion in deficits during the next 10 years. Republicans and Democrats on the committee were agreed on only one thing: They all desperately desire to be reelected.

Four years ago, Barack Obama campaigned for president, in part, on the platform that he would reduce the level of acrimony in Washington. Three years into his term, Congress is paralyzed with hostility and by the blind ambition of those who serve. And the president has offered little in the way of leadership to get the nation out of the crisis.

The exercise in Lakeland’s government class this week was intended to teach the students there a lesson about citizenship. Perhaps, though, they could teach our leaders a lesson of their own: It will only be through the sacrifice of our leaders that America finds its way out of the financial mess that threatens it today.

The time for easy solutions to the nation’s fiscal problems was gone many years ago. Back when it would have been comparatively easy to fix things, legislators chose to postpone the pain. Now, we have reached the point where that pain is inevitable and will most certainly be widespread. If our elected leaders aren’t up to the task, they should be replaced.

It’s so simple, really, that even a high-school government student gets it.