What will the next, more balanced America look like?

This is a thread I’ve pulled a couple of times in the past and as New York’s fiscal crisis deepens, it seems worthwhile tugging it again.

Here’s what we know, regardless of our political stripes or our ideological persuasions: We’ve been living beyond our means.

Whether you’re a Wall Street investment banker or a local government official bringing home the bacon for your hamlet.

Whether you’re a college student racking up huge credit card debts or a senior who didn’t put enough aside for retirement.

We are a society built on debt; and at long last the bill is coming due.

Which is painful and frightening and potentially devastating.

But I can’t help thinking it could also be renewing and full of opportunity.

So here are some of my questions:

What will the government of the future — one taxpayers can actually afford — look like?

What services will we still want when we stop borrowing to pay for them?

Will we spend more of our own time and money taking care of our elderly parents, rather than handing them over to the government?

Will we expect a slightly smaller paycheck if we have the good fortune to enjoy a stable government job?

Will we stop spending more on our military than the next half-dozen largest nations combined?

And how about our personal lives? After we max out our last credit card, will we sit around glumly thinking of the good old days?

Or will we find more rewarding things to do that aren’t built around spending money we don’t have?

Is it time to swap the TV dish for a night at the grange?

I’m guessing similar questions are coming due on the environment.

If the vast majority of scientists are correct, we can’t keep burdening our climate and our soils and our oceans.

But maybe forging a cleaner economy will have real virtues in our lives; and it might prove far more sustainable.

I don’t want to sound overly pollyanaish here. This is going to sting. For millions of Americans, it already stings.

And compared with about 99% of the planet’s population, we have it really good.

But I have the feeling that we’re going to have to do this, one way or the other.

Our lines of credit are tapped; China’s getting squirrely about loaning us money; New York state is going begging; the planet is heating up; and we’re past peak oil.

So here’s the question for the thread:

What are some real-world, practical, normal life changes that you think are coming.

Not ideological stuff, not hairshirt suffering and finger-wagging.

I’m interested in the little, cumulative ways that you think our lives will likely shift, for better and for worse.

Comments welcome below.