After opening the primary ballot, nothing could prepare me for the onslaught of candidates for both the U.S. House and U.S. Senate in this year’s primary. Could there really be that many? Moreover, do any of them actually represent something different, something new, something innovative?

Since we all started school we’ve read countless history texts that have extolled the exceptional qualities of our founding fathers and national leaders. These texts are not wrong per se, just inaccurate. They seduced us into thinking that social change in any direction only comes when our city, state, and national leaders choose to initiate it.

A little while ago a good friend of mine brought to my attention that in the past 10 years the best idea from our national government for economic renewal, for rejecting terrorists domestically, and for combating any myriad of natural disaster or corporate disaster, has been to go shopping.

This policy by both the Bush and Obama administrations after disasters is wholly disappointing and insulting.

If this current recession has taught us anything it should be that big business does not know best. What is in the best interest of The Gap, the Home Depot, BP and Gucci should not be mistaken for what is in our best interest as a community of citizens and people. No amount of designer jeans will solve our ever-widening innovation gap with the rest of the world.

I look around my house and realize that most of what I have I don’t need. In some small way, I was as responsible for the economic crisis as Lehman Brothers and shady mortgage brokers. I allowed myself to be seduced by the message that my worth is inextricably connected to what I have and not what I do to make my community better.

If we are serious about digging ourselves out of our current hole, we cannot grab the same shovel we used to dig it. Our definition of citizenship must reach beyond the old dichotomy of taxpayer and consumer and the way our elected leaders communicate with us must rise above those identities as well.

For decades we’ve been distracted by the tax vs. spending cuts debate that goes nowhere because both parties do both when it suits their interests. The only difference is the recipients of the benefit.

Voting is important, but voting alone is not enough. Nothing will change unless we see our role as citizens as more than just taxpayers, consumers and voters.

Paul Sutton lives in Bellevue