Obviously, one of the big things citizens can do in this age of participatory democracy is to seek out the candidates when they come to town and demand that they confront them on how they plan to deal with the federal budget, the expiring tax cuts and the growing entitlement challenge.  Tom Redburn has an excellent commentary in The New York Times on this very subject at: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/03/us/politics/04web-redburn.html [1]

He does an excellent job of covering the facts of the matter and says...

"Nobody expects the president to be the nation’s accountant-in-chief. And there’s no political advantage in talking about higher costs when it’s so much more fulfilling to promise new benefits. But shouldn’t the candidates be asked insistently how they propose to deal with this coming mess?"

Right on!