The economic collapse of Greece is a wake-up call. The unsustainable combination of a bloated public bureaucracy, high deficit spending and unfunded pension obligations busted Greece's government bubble. Now the birthplace of modern democracy is on the brink of becoming a failed state.

The Bank of England recently warned that the U.S. is on the road to the same fiscal failure as Greece, and the Obama administration's insistence on massive public spending and increasing deficits is the reason.

At this rate, the U.S. government will be the next economic bubble to burst. We've seen similar downturns: the information technology bubble in 2000, housing in 2007 and Wall Street in 2008. If unchecked, America's government bubble will depress our economy with higher interest rates and defaulting state and local governments.

Politicians Aren't Businessmen

Federal spending alone this year accounts for 25% of our nation's gross domestic product. If you add state and local spending, the number is closer to 50%. No economy can thrive when nearly half of all economic output is directed by politicians rather than entrepreneurs and small businesses.

After big government spending, government employee unions pose a serious threat to America's fiscal health. Over the past 30 years, union membership has declined significantly, from 23% of all workers in 1980 to about 12% today. But the percentage of union members working for government has soared: Over 50% of all union workers in the U.S. are employed by the government compared with only 17% in 1980.

In addition, government workers make about $10 per hour more than the average private sector worker.

And when they retire, taxpayers are on the hook to pay for lucrative pensions promised by a generation of politicians trying to win the next election. America's small-business owners could only dream of providing the type of pensions that government workers take for granted.

The way to stop the government bubble from bursting is through strict fiscal discipline and empowering the private sector with tax relief. Reducing federal spending is an urgent priority.  The engine of the American economy is small business, not government.

If the size of government continues to grow, there will be less of free enterprise and less creation of new wealth and new jobs. The American government will primarily function to spread the wealth. Like in Greece, the economy here will fail.

Congress will not make the tough decisions necessary to reduce spending unless we force its hand. When we balanced the budget in the 1990s, we did it with strong controls on spending, real reform of welfare and Medicare, and tax cuts to increase economic growth. This led to four straight years of balanced budgets for the first time since the 1920s.

The current Congress is spending money so frivolously, there is a strong possibility it may not even adopt a budget resolution this year for the first time since modern budget rules were adopted in 1974. To ensure Congress is always a responsible steward of taxpayers' money, we must add a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.

In addition, hundreds of billions in federal spending annually goes to crooks defrauding the government. According to an October 2009 white paper by Thomson Reuters, 19% of the overall waste from the American health care system is through willful theft in the Medicare and Medicaid system.

A cadre of additional flaws generates even more waste. The most effective way to stop paying the crooks is to go to the ballot box and support people who will replace the current failed system with a system that ensures accountability.

Spend, Tax, Spend

The current political class simply refuses to solve the spending problem; instead they are conjuring up new ways to take more money from taxpayers.

Case and point: When creating the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform — a bipartisan scapegoat to create new taxes — the president said, "Everything has to be on the table."

We believe when the president says everything he means new taxes.

Raising taxes is hardly a profile in presidential leadership.

We challenge the commission to prove us wrong. Instead of recommending new taxes, pledge to the American people that the commission will focus solely on eliminating unnecessary spending and reducing the size of government.

Doing anything else would irresponsibly let the president and Congress approve billions in new job-killing taxes by creating the political cover that comes with the findings of so-called bipartisan commissions.

The government bubble is rapidly expanding. America doesn't have to follow Greece and get blown off an economic cliff.

• Gingrich, former speaker of the House, is general chairman of American Solutions and the author of "To Save America."

• Varroney is chief operating officer of American Solutions.