The issue of reducing our national debt is often raised, but not really answered. Heck, we are still talking (if the current shouting can be called that) about reducing the deficit, which is just another way of saying let's increase the debt some more, but not as much. Just how do we pay down our national debt in a way that the average American voter can understand and support? Here is my idea:

Turn the national debt into a national mortgage, payable over 30 years. Interest would be calculated at the current rate for Treasuries, which is roughly 2 percent. Future budgets need not only balance the budget, they must allow for regular monthly payments on the national mortgage.

This concept reduces an impossible-to-grasp number down to a rational monthly payment. How big is that payment? Well, spread over 30 years, assuming an interest rate of 2 percent, the monthly payment on our current $16.4 trillion debt would be about $60 billion, which is roughly 15 percent of monthly tax revenues. Most homeowners pay a mortgage equal to 30 percent of income. We can afford this.

To deal with our national debt we need a plan other than the current plan of passing the looming disaster on to our children. This is a plan Americans can understand and support to make sure our great American house is never foreclosed.

Tom Dalgliesh

Blaine