Empty tables overlooking Seal Rocks are seen inside the closed Cliff House on Wednesday, October 9, in San Francisco. The 150-year-old oceanside icon was ordered closed Wednesday by the National Park Service for the duration of the partial government shutdown, leaving most of the restaurant's 170 employees without work. The federal government entered a shutdown October 1, furloughing hundreds of thousands of workers. Many government services and agencies remain completely or partially closed. 
Boaters gather to protest the closure of Everglades National Park waters on October 9 near Islamorada, Florida. About a third of the 2,380-square-mile park encompasses Florida Bay and has been closed to Florida Keys guides and recreational fishermen since October 1. 
A camping party at the Dolly Copp campground in Gorham, New Hampshire, on October 9 is told that the park will close on Thursday, October 10, at noon. The privately run campground in New Hampshire's White Mountains National Forest was forced to close ahead of the lucrative Columbus Day weekend because of the federal government shutdown. 
Rick Hohensee holds a "Fire Congress" sign near the House steps on Capitol Hill in Washington on Tuesday, October 8. 
Officers stand at the base of stairs leading to the Capitol Rotunda on Monday, October 7. 
A bull elk appears to stick out its tongue at the closed north entrance to Yellowstone National Park in Montana on October 7 in a photo submitted by iReporter Brad Orsted. Orsted joked the animal was giving its opinion on the government shutdown. 
Tourists take photos at a barricade blocking access to the World War II Memorial in Washington on Sunday, October 6. 
River runners make camp in a dirt parking lot in Marble Canyon, Arizona, after being unable to access the Colorado River at Lee's Ferry on Saturday, October 5. 
A closure sign is posted on the National Mall in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Thursday, October 3. 
Metal gates closed with a chain block the entrance to Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park, in Kennesaw, Georgia on Thursday, October 3. A sign posted on the gates announces the park's closure, citing the government shutdown. 
Tourists take photos of the Statue of Liberty while riding a tour boat in New York Harbor on October 3. The statue is adminstered by the National Park Service and is closed as a result of the government shutdown. 
A single security guard patrols the closed Lincoln Memorial in Washington on October 3. 
A U.S. Capitol police officer walks past a statue of Gerald Ford in the rotunda on Tuesday, October 1. The Capitol is closed to tours because of the government shutdown. 
Barricades around the World War II Memorial in Washington prevent people from entering the monument on October 1. The memorial was temporary opened to veteran groups who arrived on Honor Flights on a day trip to visit the nation's capital. 
World War II veteran Russell Tucker of Meridian, Mississippi, stands outside the barricade as he visits the World War II Memorial in Washington on October 1. 
World War II Veteran George Bloss, from Gulfport, Mississippi, looks out over the National World War II Memorial in Washington, on October 1. Veterans who had traveled from across the country were allowed to visit the National World War II Memorial after it had been officially closed because of the partial government shutdown. 
A park ranger secures a road at the entrance to the Mount Rushmore National Memorial on October 1 in Keystone, South Dakota. 
A sign is posted in the window of an IRS office in Brooklyn notifying that the office is closed due to the government shutdown on October 1. 
A visitor takes a picture of a sign announcing the closure of the Fort Point National Historic Site due to the partial government shutdown on October 1 in San Francisco, California. 
A hand-written sign informs visitors to Faneuil Hall, the nation's oldest public meeting hall, that restrooms are closed as a result of the partial government shutdown in Boston, on October 1. 
Visitors to Independence National Historical Park are reflected in the window of the closed building housing the Liberty Bell, on October 1 in Philadelphia. 
Mark Weekley, superintendent at the National Park Service's Lewis and Clark National Historical Trail, puts up a sign proclaiming the facility closed due to the federal government shutdown, in Omaha, Nebraska, on October 1. 
Hot Springs National Park employee Stacy Jackson carries a barricade while closing Arlington Lawn in Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas on October 1. 
The Washington Monument is seen behind a chain fence in Washington, on October 1. 
A National Park Service ranger finishes putting up a sign indicating all facilities at the Martin Luther King Historic Site are closed to the public in Atlanta, on October 1. 
A Capitol police officer walks through the empty Capitol Rotunda, closed to tours during the government shutdown on Capitol Hill in Washington, on October 1. 
An employee at the Springfield Armory National Historic Site in Springfield, Massachusetts, puts up a sign on October 1, to notify visitors that the site is closed because of a government shutdown. 
A U.S. Park Service police officer stands at the closed Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall in Washington on October 1. 
A man looks into the closed Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington on October 1. 
A National Parks Service ranger posts a sign on the doors of the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta on October 1 notifying visitors that the church is closed. 
A U.S. park ranger places a closed sign on a barricade in front of the World War II Memorial in Washington on October 1. 
Park police and Park Service employees close down the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall on October 1. 
A sign informs visitors that the Suresnes American Cemetery and Memorial, west of Paris, is closed because of the shutdown on October 1. 
A man walks past a sign noting the closure at the Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Valley View, Ohio, on October 1. 
Members of the U.S. National Park Service close the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall in Washington on October 1. 
A U.S. park ranger posts a closed sign at the Lincoln Memorial on October 1. 
A sign alerting visitors that the National Gallery of Art is closed stands outside the building on October 1. 
People look at a sign announcing that the Statue of Liberty is closed in New York on October 1. 
Fencing around the World War II Memorial prevents people from entering the monument on the National Mall in Washington on October 1. 
Signs taped on museum doors alert visitors that the National Museum of American History in Washington is closed on October 1. 
A U.S. park service police officer stands guard at the entrance of the closed Lincoln Memorial on October 1. 
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- Tom Coburn: We need a long-term deal, not short-term extensions in shutdown crisis
- Coburn: The real danger is not solving the problem of our spending addiction
- He says for example, the Social Security Disability Trust Fund will be bankrupt by 2016
- Coburn: The president and Congress must show real leadership and compromise
Editor's note: Tom Coburn, a Republican, is a U.S. senator from Oklahoma.
(CNN) -- The enduring symbol of the government shutdown was when World War II veterans stormed the barricades on the National Mall. They reminded those of us in public service that they fought and died so we could resolve our differences peacefully.
Nowhere on our monuments will you read the words: "I will not negotiate." In fact, our monuments tell the opposite story. Our National Mall is a monument to compromise and sacrificial leadership.
As the debate about how to end the government shutdown converges with a debate over the nation's borrowing limit, the real decision Washington faces is whether to make hard choices now or later.
We don't need short-term extensions as much as we need a long-term spending addiction recovery plan. We are out of control. Congress should do what any responsible parent would do if their adolescent child couldn't handle the responsibility of a credit card. We should cut up the credit card and live within our means.
If we do nothing, sooner or later we'll see the White House's worst fears realized -- a sudden interest rate spike, a collapse of our credit rating and a global economic meltdown.
People of good faith on both sides agree on the math. There is no way we can grow fast enough to avoid massive -- and debilitating -- tax increases or structural changes to our entitlement programs. My friend Erskine Bowles, who served as chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, put it best when he said we face the "most predictable economic crisis in history."
So when Treasury Secretary Jack Lew says failing to lift the debt ceiling would be playing with fire, he's the one on the wrong side of economics and history.
President 'happy' about debt deal offer 
Boehner: No one gets all they want The real danger is not solving the underlying problem of overspending that requires us to raise the debt ceiling. As Moody's Credit Agency has explained, not raising the debt limit will not cause a default and will leave our "creditworthiness intact."
Regardless, we can, and should, act now to avoid further crisis in the future. The good news is we have plenty of options.
The president's own budget is a good place to start. In it he proposed $435 billion in savings over the next decade that many Republicans would accept. Why would he not work with us to enact those savings?
Specifically, the president proposed using a more accurate way to adjust for inflation with Social Security benefits and other federal payments. His proposal could save $230 billion over 10 years. Why should this idea be off limits?
The president also proposed saving $50 billion over the next decade by asking wealthy seniors to pay a little more for their Medicare premiums. I introduced a bill with Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill building on this policy. Why should our bipartisan bill inspired by the president be off the table?
This week I released a report with Democratic Sens. Carl Levin and Tom Carper and Republican Sen. John McCain. Featured on "60 Minutes," it exposed a "disability industrial complex" that is riddled with fraud. The Social Security Disability Trust Fund will be bankrupt by 2016. Millions of disabled Americans will face benefit cuts or middle-income Americans will face an increase in their payroll taxes. Why should we raise the debt ceiling without working to cut the billions in waste and fraud that has been uncovered in our bipartisan investigations?
Meanwhile, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office has detailed $250 billion in duplication in our discretionary budget that both parties have largely ignored. Why would we impose billions of dollars of additional debt on future generations when we could instead find billions in additional savings?
I'm pleased my colleagues in the House are making similar and additional proposals of their own. The fact is the menu of options from numerous commissions and proposals amounts to trillions in savings. What we need is the political courage to act.
The real question is: If now is not the time to negotiate, then when? Delaying these decisions might be good for our political security, but it will seriously undermine our economic and national security.
Our founders understood that politicians and factions would always be tempted to not compromise, and would try to ideologically cleanse the public square of meaningful opposition. This hyperpartisan mentality was on display with both the passage of Obamacare and the counterproductive backlash in my own party. The result has been a government shutdown.
As someone with a record of cutting spending and holding popular -- but costly -- bills, I'm not afraid to say that principled compromise is courageous, and neither should anyone in public office. I believe the very compromises that gave us our nation can be used to save our nation.
As much as I would love to see 67 pure conservatives in the Senate, that isn't going to happen. And as much as I would love to cut spending by $9 trillion, as I detailed in my own "Back in Black" plan, I'll settle for less if we can save America in the process.
At pivotal moments, our best leaders have always chosen negotiation and compromise over domination and humiliation. George Washington could have been king but he gave up power. Abraham Lincoln chose reconstruction over retribution. Harry Truman gave our vanquished foes a new beginning with the Marshall Plan, and he even let Japan keep its emperor, and with it secured the peace.
It's time for President Obama, and all our congressional leaders, to do the same. All our problems can be solved, but only if we participate. The time to do so is now.
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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Tom Coburn.
