Andrew Taylor at the Associated Press earned his pay today with this story, "Costly Campaign Vows Face Reality Check." It's today's must-read budget story, for the simple reason that it states the facts the candidates won't tell you: the budget realities facing the next president are going to hamper what can be done, no matter who wins. And none of the candidates is really facing up to this -- or at least, they're not going to admit it. This is, after all, the promising season in politics, and nobody ever promises the voters a dose of grim financial reality.

Everybody in Washington knows about the "unsustainable" fiscal future the country faces. So I'm assuming the candidates don't buy into their own talk and that it's only the American people who need to be brought into the loop. Because otherwise, the day after the election is going to feel a lot like the bleak last scene of The Candidate, when newly elected senator Robert Redford turns to his campaign manager and asks "what do we do now?"