WASHINGTON -- The return of Congress in the new year presents an opportunity to take a clear-eyed look at our fiscal priorities and examine the potential threats posed by long term budget deficits and unrestrained federal spending.

When I served as governor, Virginia earned national respect for its distinctively bipartisan approach to effective government and its commitment to balanced budgets. These accolades were the result of much hard work and many tough choices -- but most of us serving in Richmond recognized the need to act in a bipartisan way to move Virginia forward.

Sadly, the resolve we demonstrated in Richmond is sorely lacking in today's Washington. When I joined the U.S. Senate last January, we moved quickly and took extraordinary action to successfully shore up an economy that was on the verge of a complete meltdown.

We're not out of the woods yet, but there are welcome signs that the economy has begun to stabilize: Since June of last year, job losses have slowed dramatically, the worst of the housing crisis appears to be over, the Dow is well over 10,000 again, and the major banks are lining up to repay their government bailout loans.

Congress ended the year with a noisy, sometimes messy debate over health care -- the single largest expenditure by state and federal governments, and the largest contributor to our federal budget deficits.

As we now begin to move away from the economic abyss, we must turn our attention to putting our nation back on a solid and responsible fiscal track.

This means finally putting the federal budget on a clearly defined path that dramatically and consistently reduces our federal budget deficit.

But the inability of the regular congressional process to act to put our nation's fiscal house in order couldn't be clearer. Experts have warned for decades of the coming fiscal storm, yet little has been done about it in recent years except to make the problem worse. And the longer Congress and the administration wait to act, the harder the choices become.

We need to establish policies now that will kick in after the current economic downturn has ended -- policies that phase in, over time, some of the solutions that will ensure the nation's long-term fiscal stability.

That's why I have joined a bipartisan group of senators and representatives, including Virginia Rep. Frank Wolf, in co-sponsoring legislation to create a commission on federal budget and entitlement reform.

We are calling for creation of a bipartisan task force that will make sweeping budget and revenue recommendations to be presented to Congress, with no amendments allowed, for a simple up-or-down vote.

As we've seen in the current health care debate, legislative deal-making too often allows parochial and political considerations to trump the national interest.

That's why I believe this Bipartisan Task Force for Responsible Fiscal Action could serve as the basis for a new process to tackle this fiscal challenge.

Everything would be on the table, including spending and revenues. We can't solve this challenge by looking at only one side of the ledger.

The task force recommendations would be considered by Congress under expedited procedures with a "yes" or "no" vote required.

Most important, the task force approach would ensure a bipartisan outcome. A supermajority of the task force members would have to agree to adopt the recommendations, and congressional approval would require supermajorities in both the Senate and House.

This is the only way needed changes are going to be adopted and maintained over time.

No one party can or will do this on its own. Both parties must be invested in the outcome and committed to its success.

Today, our nation's economic strength and vitality is at stake. Leaders on both sides of the aisle in Congress need to join in this effort to demonstrate they are serious about solving the problem together so that we can once again return our nation to a responsible fiscal path.