With Congress finally approving a budget for a fiscal year that is already half over, it’s time to focus on the far more serious problem of the $14 trillion national debt. The wretched debate over current spending offers no reason to believe that Washington’s leaders are ready for bipartisan compromise on long-term deficit reduction.

The wrangling over the deal to cut $38 billion from current spending came perilously close to shutting down the government and endangered vital operations like pay for U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, even though the total amount in cuts was less than 1 percent of the budget.

Republicans threw an ideological monkey wrench into the process by threatening funding for organizations like Planned Parenthood and National Public Radio, despite their having little bearing on the deficit numbers. Democrats cast every spending cut, small or large, in apocalyptic terms.

In other words, it was ugly. Only inside the Beltway could this be regarded as a “model of cooperation.” A long-term deficit solution will require much tougher decisions and real horse-trading — the kind that Republicans and Demo-crats engaged in routinely before partisanship became so ingrained.

A refusal to raise the debt ceiling — the next likely bump in the road — would spell disaster in the financial markets. The mere prospect that the government would be unable to pay its bills would stop the economic recovery dead in its tracks.

President Obama has paid lip service to deficit reduction. He’s late to the party, but at least he has a real plan. He waited until last week to unveil it. He talks about tough decisions and shared sacrifice, but, again, the deal over this year’s budget is no model to emulate. The $38 billion reduction he agreed to included some phony figures, like the $6.2 billion “cut” from the Commerce Department for the census. Because the census has already been completed, the money would not have been spent in this cycle anyway.

The president should have gotten out ahead of this debate. Forcing the other side to show its cards first might be a good tactic in poker, but it’s not leadership in politics. His plan unrealistically postpones much of the savings until 11 to 12 years out from now.

Republicans, led by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., deserve credit for laying out a plan first. However, it leaves a lot to be desired.

Medicare needs reform, but privatizing, as Mr. Ryan proposes, is not the answer. Much of his spending cuts would come by cutting vital services to the neediest, and it offers little to the middle class. That’s unfair. And dealing only with spending without raising more revenue isn’t serious.

The budget surplus — yes, there once was a surplus — was squandered as taxes were lowered and money was borrowed the past 10 years to pay for two wars and an expensive prescription-drug program.

Advocates of tax cuts insist they help job creation, but the record this past decade does not support that. Jobs have been lost and the gap between the middle class and higher brackets has become larger. It took tax cuts to get us into this mess, and it will take increases to get us out. Letting the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest expire at the end of 2012 would be a good first step. That change alone would solve about half of the deficit problem over five years.

Current deficit projections are unsustainable. So far, both sides call the other’s proposal a “non-starter.” Well, at least they’re talking to each other.