Congrats to the New Orleans Saints on their impressive Super Bowl victory over the Indianapolis Peyton Mannings Colts.

In the coming days, we will no doubt hear many heartwarming and wonderful stories about the Saints’ connection with the rebuilding of the city of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. These stories are important, and they are not to be overlooked. The Saints’ victory as the symbol of the newfound vitality of New Orleans is a significant story to tell.

But there may be an even bigger symbol here.

New Orleans, from devastation to rebuilding, has become a symbol for many different things over the past four years. But ultimately, New Orleans can also be a symbol for the U.S.

Now of course, the comparison is not perfect, nor am I suggesting that it is. New Orleans was hit by a natural disaster. There was physical, emotional, and financial ruin all at once. There were incompetent aid efforts and dead bodies in the streets. It was a horrific tragedy, to be sure, and one made worse by those who first came to help.

But in New Orleans, we can also see ourselves. This country isn’t drowning in water, but it is drowning in debt. And we can’t say we weren’t warned. Instead of a natural disaster, we’ve sustained an eight-year, fiscally reckless administration followed by a new administration that took its predecessor’s’ fiscal recklessness and juiced it up on steroids.

Now New Orleans has turned it around, to an extent. Through hard work, media attention, and changes in state leadership, New Orleans is slowly but surely recapturing parts of her former self.

We can do the same. By speaking honestly and calling attention to our unsustainable spending habits, by electing accountable leaders who voice similar concerns, and by rallying around positive reforms, we can begin to right our path again.

Disasters and setbacks happen, it is what you do with them that matter.

Thank you, New Orleans Saints for personifying a city and a narrative. Now let’s hope our entire country can rebound in a similar way.