Look no further than the national debt for proof that fiscal responsibility is out of fashion.

Federal spending is up more than 10 percent this year, compared to just a year ago.

The annual deficit is expected to surpass $1 trillion in 2020, and in every year for the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Add up all those yearly deficits and you get the federal debt. It’s about $22 trillion and has grown by $3 trillion over the past three years.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell earlier this month urged lawmakers to adopt more responsible tax-and-spending plans.

“Putting the federal budget on a sustainable path when the economy is strong would help ensure that policymakers have the space to use fiscal policy to assist in stabilizing the economy during a downturn,” Powell told the House committee.

As he was speaking, President Donald Trump used social media to criticize Powell and the Federal Reserve, complaining that interest rates were too high.

Trump’s opinion is a complete reversal from 2015 and 2016, when he accused the Federal Reserve of keeping interest rates too low.

It’s a flip-flop similar to the flip-flops of Trump and his supporters on other issues.

In 2015 and 2016, for example, Republicans were demanding that Democratic President Barack Obama reduce federal deficits.

After Trump took office, those same Republicans cheerfully supported tax cuts that sent the deficit – and the national debt – soaring.

Then they happily approved budget deals to increase spending, especially military spending.

The dramatic rise in the nation’s debt over the past three years can surprise no one familiar with Trump’s track record in business.

Those who argue that government should be run like a business are getting a look at what that means when the chief executive has a long record of driving businesses into bankruptcy. This is not a president who has much regard for fulfilling his financial obligations or paying his bills.

When it comes to government debt, there is an economic school of thought that argues that big deficits and huge debt are good things. That theory usually is espoused by socialists, rather than Republicans.

In more conventional circles, economists advocate restraint, saying governments with smaller debts can spend less tax revenue on interest on that debt and more on, say, national parks and education. Smaller debt loads also give governments more options when the economy turns bad.

That’s the point Powell was making when he testified before the House committee. Smaller deficits and a more manageable cumulative debt would give lawmakers more flexibility during a recession.

That was the case in 2008, when the worst recession since the 1930s struck. Congress approved payroll tax cuts and increased spending to stabilize the economy and help hard-hit Americans.

At the time, the federal deficit was just under $460 billion. It would exceed $1 trillion from 2009 to 2012, as the country climbed out of the recession.

By 2015, the annual deficit had declined to $442 billion.

It more than doubled in four years and is still going up. As the president touts his slow-growing economy, it’s wise to keep in mind that his tax cuts and big spending increases do come at a cost.

It’s just that the cost will be borne by future generations of Americans, not the deadbeats who ran up the bills.

I became a fan of vote centers on Election Day 2004.

I was working in Lafayette, Indiana, at the time, and my plan was to stop by my precinct’s designated polling place on the way to work.

The line was so long that even though I built an extra hour into the schedule to vote, I was still more than an hour late to my job.

After that, Indiana made it easy on me and thousands of other voters. It started using vote centers, first in Tippecanoe County, where I lived, and then elsewhere around the state.

When I moved to Kansas in 2012, I was glad to find that Sedgwick County also had adopted measures to make voting more accessible.

It had established advance vote centers that made it easy for me to stop by and cast my ballot a few days before election day.

Kansas lawmakers last year voted to take such common-sense, voter-friendly measures statewide. But Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab has slammed the brakes on progress.

Kansas is not ready for such a new-fangled thing, he claims. Even though the Legislature approved a law to allow counties to use vote centers, Schwab argues he needs more time to write all the regulations.

Under the new law, counties are authorized to set up vote centers that accept any voter from that county. Instead of being forced to vote at a designated polling site for your precinct, you can choose the site most convenient to you. That might be near your kid’s school, on the way to get groceries or down the street from your job.

In Indiana, vote centers eased long lines. Through news media websites and social media, voters could learn where lines were shorter in real time.

In the runup to elections, Tippecanoe County had advance vote centers at nursing homes, grocery stores and other places selected by local election officials. Officials found vote centers were cheaper to operate, required fewer election workers and increased turnout.

Sedgwick County’s has been using only advance vote centers – sites open in the days running up to the election. With the new Kansas law, it’s ready to expand the use of vote centers to Election Day.

In an era when so many people commute, work long hours, and have overfilled work-and-family schedules, vote centers make uncommonly good sense.

Government’s job is to provide necessary services in ways that are both financially efficient and convenient for citizens. But that’s not happening in Kansas. Not only is the secretary of state dragging his feet on statewide implementation, Schwab also seems to be prohibiting local officials who are ready from using vote centers.

This isn’t some brave new advance in election technology.

It wasn’t even new when Tippecanoe County introduced vote centers more than a decade ago, because by then Colorado already had vote centers figured out and working.

The babble of excuses regarding system security are flimsy at best, and suspicious at least. Election fraud is rare, but in the cases documented, the culprits most often exploit vulnerabilities with old-fashioned paper ballots, usually absentee ballots.

Kansas lawmakers should act expeditiously to compel state politicians to get out of the way of counties that are ready and willing to make voting easier and more accessible for their citizens.