presidential campaign

The Wall Street bailout is giving a lot of people a dose of cold fiscal reality – but you wouldn't know it to listen to Barack Obama and John McCain. And a great way to see this refusal to face fiscal facts in action is to watch Public Agenda's comments on the Blogging the Debates project.

A new study shows that the public is capable of facing facts about the nation's fiscal problems – which is a good thing, because they're probably going to have to take a big bite of a reality sandwich in the coming week.

The latest projections show the federal government will have a more than $400 billion deficit this year. And next year. And the year after that.

Can a movie get people fired up about the national debt?

As far as the fiscal issues go, I think the media's been tougher on the presidential candidates this year than in the past, and this Bloomberg News story is the latest example. So far, it isn't clear that it's having much impact.

If you've been wondering about the presidential candidates and how well they're connected to fiscal reality, there are two stories worth reading today.

Most people will never read the Tax Policy Center's new analysis of the presidential candidates' tax plans. For policy wonks, of course, it's a gold mine. For most non-wonky voters, however, the real jarring statement is this paragraph:

When it comes to the federal budget, a 12-step program works pretty well as an analogy. After all, financially speaking, the federal government engages in consistently self-destructive behavior. Even when the government makes progress, our leaders are prone to falling off the fiscal-responsibility wagon.

The good news from the Social Security and Medicare trustees is that things haven't gotten any worse. The bad news is that the situation was bad anyway.

The Social Security and Medicare trustees' report is due today, and my first question is: will Medicare be the lead of anyone's news story today?