It would be easy to criticize the U.S. Forest Service for proposing to close dozens of campgrounds in northern Wyoming in order to focus resources on bark beetle infestations primarily in northern Colorado.

Why should Wyoming people, including the state's tourism industry, be forced to sacrifice in order to address a problem in another state? Why can't the federal government come up with more money from other sources to deal with the effects of bark beetles?

If Wyoming folks are serious about reducing the federal deficit, however, we're going to have to accept sacrifices like this. An expected $2 million reduction in the budget of the Shoshone National Forest -- part of what the Forest Service is proposing in order to focus that money on bark beetles primarily in four Colorado national forests -- may be a pittance when considering the massive federal budget. But controlling federal spending will require sacrifice across the nation.

The Obama administration has alerted domestic agencies to plan for a freeze or even a 5 percent cut in their budgets as part of an effort to rein in record deficits. That means there likely won't be any new pots of money for the Forest Service to tap to deal with bark beetles, and the agency will have to reallocate resources to contend with the growing problem -- as its Rocky Mountain Region has done in setting aside $49 million in its fiscal year 2010 budget to tackle the beetle-kill "emergency situation."

It certainly would be tempting for our elected officials to point to what they see as wasteful federal spending elsewhere and lobby for more Forest Service funding to both battle bark beetles and keep campgrounds open. They wouldn't be the first lawmakers to take the hypocritical stance of decrying out-of-control federal spending while pushing for more dollars to flow to their home districts.

But to her credit, U.S. Rep. Cynthia Lummis doesn't seem to be taking such a position.

“There is no easy fix to this problem, but we simply must find ways to empower our land managers to turn the tide in this fight,” she said, appearing to recognize both the urgency of the bark beetle epidemic and the need to control federal spending.

Of course, limiting or slightly trimming the budgets of federal agencies won't solve the nation's deficit problem. Syndicated columnist Froma Harrop pointed out on this page earlier in the week that domestic discretionary spending -- not including money going to defense, entitlements such as Medicare and payments on the debt -- totaled $485 billion last year, while the deficit was $459 billion. "You would have had to kill nearly every domestic program to balance the budget," she noted.

We also acknowledge that there could very well be $2 million somewhere in the Forest Service's Rocky Mountain Region budget that would be better spent on Shoshone National Forest campgrounds. And there's likely $49 million being spent by other federal agencies that would provide more benefit to the country if it went to fight the bark beetle infestation.

But what might be perceived as wasteful spending by people in Wyoming could be viewed as essential by people in another state. And by almost all measures, the Cowboy State fares pretty well when it comes to the return of federal dollars that come our way in relation to the federal taxes we pay.

We hope the federal government will find a way to keep campgrounds open while fighting bark beetles. But it needs to do so without increasing overall spending. Reducing the deficit won't be possible unless we, and our elected officials, stop viewing the federal treasury as the answer to all of our provincial problems.