Remember watching Dorothy, Toto, the Tin Man and Scarecrow traveling the Yellow Brick Road en route to Oz? They came across a ferocious lion, who lets out a mighty bellow before Toto, the pint-sized pup, nips at the lion’s heels. The ferociousness in appearance gave way to an utter lack of courage.

The federal government and the man chosen to lead it today are the equivalent of the lion — showing teeth but lacking the courage to bite.

On Wednesday, President Barack Obama laid out his plans to get the nation’s fiscal house in order. He said — all too vaguely — spending will have to be cut and taxes will have to rise.

Conversely, Republican Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin has proposed sweeping changes that would, in theory, result in $5 trillion in cuts over the next 10 years.

The two plans sum up the chasm as wide as the Yellow Brick Road was long in the 1939 film.

The fact is this nation is horribly in debt. The debt clock ticks at nearly $13 trillion in debt, nearly $46,000 per citizen. The total in unfunded liabilities, according to the Federal Reserve, is at $114 trillion. Forty cents of every dollar spent by the federal government is borrowed.

With a looming government shutdown last week, it took an 11th-hour agreement to “cut” $38 billion to keep the doors open. The United States came within an hour of having a government shutdown while haggling over cuts that amounted to cutting HBO from the cable TV bill as a family faces bankruptcy.

It’s chump change in the scope of our three biggest economic threats — Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. With more and more baby boomers reaching retirement age and Medicare and Medi-

caid already stretched to the limit, changes must be made. The can no longer can be kicked. We are at the end of the road and Emerald City is not in sight.

What needs to be done is not palatable. Taxes will have to go up. Spending will have to go down. The tax code must be reformed. Entitlement spending must be recalculated. Nonessential government programs must be slashed.

In front of television cameras, politicians will stress the importance of getting the finances fixed. They’ll point fingers at the other side. They’ll trumpet how it is they who have the courage to move the country to fiscal stability, grandstanding all the way to the next television news interview.

Unfortunately, history has shown that when they are forced to back up those claims of courage, they will retreat to the woods and cower at the nip of Toto.