In more than three decades working as a trial attorney, I’ve learned that the best negotiated compromises are those where each side walks away from the bargaining table scowling. It means everyone has made concessions and shared the pain of compromise.

Last week’s harrowing Congressional deficit compromise, which trimmed the federal budget by about $2.1 trillion over the next decade and raised the debt ceiling by a similar amount, left only some scowling and many (who didn’t have to share any pain) smiling. It allowed the government to keep its doors open and continue paying its bills until early 2013, but it solved little else.

That’s because $2.1 trillion represents less than one third of the projected $7 trillion shortfall projected for the same 10-year period. Only low hanging fruit – consisting of a variety of discretionary domestic spending programs — was plucked, but big drivers of the deficit – defense spending, Social Security and Medicare entitlements, and tax revenues — were left virtually untouched

The 12-member Congressional Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, still to be named, could, of course, tackle and try to rein in these deficit drivers.

But don’t expect the committee’s six Republicans and six Democrats to agree on the color of an orange. The current climate of rabid partisanship aside, legislators hate to ask voters to make personal sacrifices for the common good, because, in doing so, they risk a rise in unemployment – their own.

Still, if this country is going to make any real progress towards closing the deficit, everyone will have to share the pain, including lawmakers.

A number of substantial steps could be taken towards that goal without ending civilized life as we know it. The following are a few suggestions of my own, which, in the spirit of true compromise, are guaranteed to bring a scowl to the face of just about everyone reading this column.

1. Raise Taxes to Increase Revenues. The Reagan-era tax cuts were justified by the supply-side theory that lower taxes would spur so much economic growth the economy would outgrow the deficit. President Reagan never balanced a budget after he cut taxes in 1981. Nor did Pres. George W. Bush, who pushed through tax cuts in 2001 that contributed to a decade of budget deficits, adding an estimated $2 trillion to the national debt. President Clinton raised marginal tax rates in 1993, producing budget surpluses for four consecutive years from 1998 to 2001, and the economy thrived despite his tax hikes. One definition of stupid is to keep on doing what doesn’t work. Continuing tax rates which are so low they produce insufficient revenues to run the government is stupid. The Clinton-era tax rates worked and will come back into effect in 2013 if the Bush-era cuts are allowed to expire. A sweeping tax reform to eliminate exemptions, deductions and loopholes might produce the same result, but, since no bipartisan agreement on tax reform is likely, sun-setting the current tax rates is preferable to extending them

2. Raise the Social Security Eligibility Age. Social Security payments cost about $700 billion a year. The Social Security system is currently in the black, funded by adequate payroll taxes. However, due to the aging of the boomer generation and the increase in life expectancy (now 50 percent higher at age 65 than when Social Security went into effect in 1937), it’s projected to go into the red by 2023. To keep the system actuarially sound, the government will eventually have to increase payroll taxes, reduce benefits, privatize the system, or increase age eligibility. Of these options, raising the threshold age, say from 67 to 70, seems the most desirable, since it doesn’t harm those already retired or those now working. It just defers so-called “golden” years of a population that is living longer. While we’re at it, we should get rid of the early retirement (age 62) option and bring the overly generous federal retirement system into line with Social Security. (For those seniors who are now ready to lynch me, bear in mind that I just turned 64 and am a card-carrying AARP member).

3. Charge More for Medicare or Limit Coverage. No private health insurer can afford to charge premiums amounting to only one quarter the cost of benefits it pays out. Yet, payroll taxes and premiums from seniors fund only about 25 percent of the cost of medical services and drug benefits under Medicare, the rest coming from general tax revenues. The Treasury spends about $550 billion a year for Medicare, a sum which is growing exponentially due to an aging population and inflation in health-care costs. The government should either impose higher payroll taxes and supplementary beneficiary premiums to cover more of Medicare’s costs or reduce the scope of services offered by the program. A vigorous crackdown on fraud and abuse in the system can help reduce costs, but it won’t single-handedly solve the problem. Taxpayers can’t keep signing a blank check for Medicare, which, at its current pace, will soon carry the largest price tag of any government program.

4. Cut Defense Spending By Resorting to Multilateralism.

Defense spending amounts to over $700 billion annually, up from less than $300 billion a decade ago. By way of comparison, this is six times what cash-rich China spends on its military. The deficit agreement only includes defense cuts over 10 years of $350 billion with the potential for another $500 billion in automatic cuts if further agreement can’t be reached. With American military involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq winding down, it’s time to re-think the way we deploy our military to maintain peace and security around the globe. Yes, it’s a dangerous world and substantial resources will need to be devoted to insuring peace and stability. But we can do the job for less by reducing both the size of our armed forces and the scope of its mission, which is still based on an increasingly untenable “Leader of the Free World” model. The model made sense during and after World War II, when we were the only major democratic power possessing a robust economy, relative security and in intact infrastructure. Today that club is much larger, and includes the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan, as well as emerging nations like Brazil and India, while the U.S. is no longer an unchallenged economic colossus. In addition, China and Russia have been known to cooperate with us on security matters when it’s in their best interest to do so. We should foster and strengthen regional collective security arrangements (like NATO) and employ ad hoc coalitions (like that assembled for the first Gulf War) when necessary to combat international threats. Allies should be pressed to bear a greater share of the defense burden. True, the multilateral approach requires a lot more patience, restraint, diplomacy, and liaison efforts on our part than unilateralism, but it also inhibits ill-advised adventures like the 2003 Iraq War and can help spread the costs of policing the world.

Though I don’t have the capacity, like the Government Accounting Office, to predict the savings that would be generated by the measures proposed above, I would expect them to amount to hundreds of billions a year.

The question isn’t whether they, or something akin to them, should be adopted. The question is whether there’s enough willingness in this country to share the pain they will cause.