Eight of us sat down at a table at Drake University the other night and lopped $4 trillion out of the nation’s budget deficit across the next 10 years. It took about an hour and a half. So I don’t know what the problem is in Washington, D.C. Maybe, like us, Congress needs someone reminding them how much time is left.

Unfortunately, we were only pretending, along with a couple hundred other citizens. All of whom also seemed to have no trouble with making America’s future a little less gruesome.

It was part of the mission of The Concord Coalition, a national organization that goes around trying to slap some sense into the American taxpayer. The event was sponsored by The Des Moines Register and Drake University’s College of Business and Public Administration, and it drew an impressive turnout on a Monday night.

The demographics ranged from Drake students – who, it should be noted, got class credit for showing up – to folks well into retirement. There was no red carpet, but notable participants included Fred Hubbell, chairman of the Iowa Power Fund board of directors; Gene Meyer, vice president of strategic initiatives at the Greater Des Moines Partnership; Gretchen Tegeler, executive director of the Polk-Des Moines Taxpayers Association; and David Vaudt, state auditor of Iowa.

The table that included both Tegeler and Vaudt snipped $4.8 trillion. Showoffs.

“We had some really great discussions,” Vaudt said later. “It was fun to look at different people’s perspectives, and I was surprised at the amount of consensus we could reach. As we discussed each option, it raised questions for many of us: How would it impact the economy? Was it regressive, creating burdens on lower-income people?”

The Concord Coalition provided a list of 41 options and their corresponding dollar values, with most of the information coming from the Congressional Budget Office. Topics ranged from eliminating agricultural subsidies – all I can say is, there weren’t many farmers in the room – to canceling a new missile defense system. From imposing a surtax on incomes of more than $1 million – there may have been a few members of this category in the room, but not enough to win a fistfight – to raising the retirement age for Social Security payments.

Some of the options were a bit dense to breeze through, but others were simple as can be. Some of the simple questions produced surprisingly easy answers.

“Our table unanimously approved the 25 cent increase in the gasoline tax,” Meyer reported. Also, “we unanimously supported an increase in the retirement age.”

OK, maybe it wasn’t a typical American group; it may have been largely bicycle riders who enjoy their jobs.

And, admittedly, our situation would have been far more realistic if angry mobs of voters had yelled at us from the hallway. Or if well-dressed lobbyists had circulated among us, doling out the kind of mind-changing gifts you get in D.C. Gifts like asteroid mining rights or maybe a nice car.

And if we were real congressmen, I suspect my parking at the Olmsted Center would have been free instead of $3.50. But that’s quibbling.

The process was similar to the city of Des Moines’ recent forums about its budget problems. Maybe we’re arriving at a new point in American history, an uplifting era when citizens take advantage of more and better ways to learn and get involved.

And I’m not thinking here about dissatisfied people hanging around in tent cities, which seems like kind of an inefficient way to transform a massive economic system.

But whether The Concord Coalition’s approach works any better than the “occupy” concept, it’s too soon to say. As Executive Director Robert Bixby pointed out: “There’s no organized constituency for fiscal responsibility.”

Jim Pollock is the managing editor of the Des Moines Business Record. He can be reached by email at jimpollock@bpcdm.com