When I was a child we sang a song, “Where Oh Where has My Little Dog Gone?” Today we should all be singing, “Where Oh Where Has Our Responsible Federal Government Gone?”

Last week the national average for regular gasoline reached a new high of over $3.50 per gallon, up 69 cents in just one year. Diesel is now averaging nearly $4.15 per gallon. Oil futures climbed to an historic high of $117 per barrel, with no hint of prices peaking anytime soon. And the Saudi Royals announced a cap in oil production at present levels, so even though demand increases, supply remains relatively constant, thereby creating upward pressure on the price per barrel.

In the state of California alone, there are now more than 500 foreclosures each and every day. The number of California homes lost to foreclosure in the first quarter surged 327% from year-ago levels.

At the same time, the International Monetary Fund is now predicting that the total losses from the subprime and related credit crises could reach an almost incomprehensible $945 billion — nearly a trillion dollars — and more than triple the colossal losses that have been announced so far.

The United States is not unique in this expanding credit crisis. Last week, the Bank of England implemented a $100 billion rescue package for Britain's financial system and home loan market ¹.

If we were keeping an eye on our own federal spending apparatus, we would know that the Government Accountability Office just reported that, in one area, it reviewed 95 federal weapons procurement programs and found them to be a total of almost $300 billion over budget.

For the past three years, the world has consumed more food than it has produced. A deepening global food crisis has sparked riots in dozens of countries, accounted for many deaths, and threatens hunger to one billion people who live on one dollar per day. In the past three years, global food prices have risen an average of 83%, exposing yet another 100 million people to the urgent need of food.

The United States is not immune to food related issues either — just this week, Sam's Club's and Costco announced their decision to ration consumer purchases of rice and flour.

Our nation and the world face numerous concurrent challenges. Growing threats present themselves on every side. These situations demand principle-centered leadership; we desperately need leaders who possess integrity, mutual respect, stability, and moral courage. More often than not, we witness just the opposite.

Over the past few weeks I have been privileged to attend General Conference in the Conference Center, and also “privileged” to spend significant time in the Federal City, Washington, D.C. Though neither is a new experience for me — I've spent parts of four decades in the halls of federal power — never before has the remarkable difference between our national government and our Church priesthood government been, for me, so stark, so startling, and so disconcerting.

What I find in our national government is alarming and deeply troubling, and yet what I observe in the Church is for me a source of enormous comfort and relief. Oh, that our political leaders could learn a lesson from that inspired manner.

Ponder first the feeling and atmosphere of General Conference, a tranquil spiritual refuge of compassion and wisdom with a message that is clear, ageless, and enveloped in harmony. The Lord Himself counseled, "If you are not one, you are not mine," and his Apostle Paul spoke of a “unity of the faith.”

How honored, how blessed we have been to experience unity of purpose and oneness of faith in such rich abundance. The entire process of leadership change occasioned by the passing of President Gordon B. Hinckley has been marked by complete and inclusive unity. Change has come without acrimony, without campaign, without personal attack, without verbal insults and brutality, without spending massive amounts of money, without personal agendas, without deceit, maneuvering, or misrepresentation, and without incessant self promotion and clamor.

Unlike the public process, following the example of the Prince of Peace, the transition was marked by revelation, inspiration, confirmation, wisdom, and quiet yet fearless faith. Our leaders stride hand-in-hand as partners with the Lord in helping to bring immortality and eternal life to all humankind, and their hearts are filled with love for all.

Such is the righteous walk of leaders armed with the priesthood in the government of God, where reassuring constancy abounds amid change.

How blessed we are that in the Church, unlike in Washington, there are no divisive theological issues and where there is “one faith, one Lord, and one baptism.” In the Doctrine and Covenants, the Lord uses one my favorite expressions — “ the peaceable things of the kingdom.” The Apostle Paul wrote of a “ peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.”

Our national government and the ongoing presidential campaign present a stark and disappointing contrast. All semblance of “peaceable things” is lost in a contest that has degenerated into a crass and brutal battleground.

It was almost two hundred years ago when James Madison, fourth president of the United States, said, “It is too early for politicians to presume on our forgetting that the public good, the real welfare of the great body of the people, is the supreme object to be pursued.”

The public good? If it was too early for Madison, what about 2008? In a democracy in which we elect our leaders, we are witnessing a stable full of conflicted mudslingers where the public good is often trampled by a culture of expediency instead of a culture of eternal truth.

Speaking in General Conference in April, 1952, President J. Reuben Clark of the First Presidency said, "If we are to preserve our freedoms and our liberties, that we shall be one.”

President Clark was not recommending we all be of the same political persuasion, but he was suggesting that as Americans we be one in our involvement and civic commitment, and that we be one united in the faith in the simple principles of the gospel.

In America in Danger, I wrote that our nation requires elected leaders, regardless of partisan affiliation, who will dare to take these steps in these difficult times to address the pending dangers regardless of their daunting complexities or political consequences. Our nation and way of life are in danger and we desperately need a courageous and comprehensive national strategy to protect our economy, before it's too late.

Will it be enough — who can know? But we do know that today an avalanche builds and will continue to do so until something lurking but unseen triggers it, and then as it comes crashing down. The time to prepare will be no more. As a nation and a people that is a risk we can ill afford.

Today, as a sovereign nation, we face national challenges as serious as we have ever known. We must invite a national civic discourse on the survival of America, we must invigorate civic democracy, we must stand fast by our Constitution and its foundational principles, and as George Washington counseled, we must “commend the Interests of our dearest Country to the protection of Almighty God.”

Before the hour grows too late, each of us as Americans must rise to the challenge facing this nation. We must demand action of our elected officials, cease our tolerance of those (including ourselves) who would spend us into bankruptcy and hardships, and who fail to build bridges of understanding around the world. It is up to you and me.

In this election year, we would do well to consider two ways how God would have us work with one another and how we may make wise decisions in the civic arena. 

1. Use the example of God's latter-day prophets as your guide.  We have before us powerful examples of how prophets, seers, and revelators approach their lives.  Such should be the standard we seek in public officials, and where such characteristics are absent it should be an obvious warning to us.  

2. Move forward with faith and meekness, and rely upon those who hold priesthood keys.  In our uncertain world of moral agency and temporal laws, we find strength in the presiding leaders of the Church who walk united with enduring certainty. They offer us a failsafe path.

As Americans we are a resilient people. As Latter-day Saints we believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law. The time has come for you and me, as law abiding citizens, to combine that resilience with our beliefs and rise to the occasion, seeking in our public arena for a greater measure of what Moroni called “a peaceable walk with the children of men.”

In a nation where much is debased, more than ever we need the eternal message of prophets and apostles. In a nation of moral relativism where for many it has become difficult to distinguish between right and wrong, we need the anchor of everlasting truths and unchanging principles. In a nation of entitlements, an unstable economy, and a growing absence of personal responsibility, we need to remember that liberty and freedom require our united loyalty, our devotion, and our principled involvement.

President Thomas Jefferson wrote, "The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time," and asked, “Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are of God?"

I, for one, am grateful for the responsible, respectful, dignified, and unwavering example prophets and apostles set for me, for the nation, and for the world. In them we can find no better source of inspiration for those, as Theodore Roosevelt said, “in the arena” of public life.

Into the hands of America God has placed divine responsibilities. It's up to you and me to be united for the public good and to choose rightly.

¹ Bank of England unveils near-100-billion-dollar lending package, http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gFJXkWsRETwfz4iuSL1bOadOZ3pg