Earlier this month, Jason Furman, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, wrote a piece in Slate about "Repairing Some Of The Worst Bush Administration Screw-Ups" in the area of fiscal policy.

The Four-Step Program he outlines:

• Step 1: Fully account for all costs in the budget
• Step 2: Stick to these costs, with a veto pen if necessary
• Step 3: Be ready to work together with the other party to reduce the deficit.
• Step 4: Don't forget what really counts:

The stabilization of the long-run deficit is inevitable—policymakers have no choice but to abide by the iron laws of arithmetic. But the most important budgetary issues are the choices policymakers make about how much to invest in research, how much to spend ensuring that everyone has health insurance, and what is done to make our nation more secure. Making these choices will be easier if we start to fix our bigger fiscal problems.

I like Furman's optimism about the inevitability of policymakers abiding by the iron laws of arithmetic. Do I share it? Not fully. Looking back at history, including the history of fiscal policy, it seems clear that the inevitability of facing up to national challenges (even to the iron law of arithmetic) depends in large measure on who happens to be president.

Here's to hoping that the next one listens to Jason Furman.

Is it discouraging or inconsequential that all of the three leading presidential candidates have been espousing inchoate fiscal policy from the stump, making claims sometimes divorced from reality, offering precious little to address the country's ailing fiscal condition?

On the one hand, it must be counted discouraging that American voters are not being treated to straight talk about the tax and budget challenges facing the nation, after what the New York Times, in an editorial yesterday, called "rising budget deficits and mounting debt from nearly eight years of profligate spending and tax breaks for the wealthy."

On the other hand, it may not matter. Any rational candidate must live in mortal fear of committing the notorious "Mondale sin" of 1984, when that year's Democratic presidential candidate suggested that a return to fiscal responsibility would involve raising taxes and went on to lose 49 of 50 states that November. Candidate Roosevelt mentioned the New Deal only once during the campaign of 1932.

Not much is heard on the hustings of the increase in the national debt from $5.5 trillion when President Bush took office to a projected $9.5 trillion on the day he departs next January. Debate moderators haven't asked how the candidates plan to deal with this and the candidates have not articulated solutions.

Bad enough. But as the Times editorial points out, what we are getting from the candidates on fiscal policy sometimes makes Charlie Gibson look like Larry Summers. According to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ):

today's superlow tax rates on capital gains are important for working people with 401(k) retirement plans. Memo to Mr. McCain: 401(k) savers get no benefit from a low capital gains rate. All of the money in those plans is eventually taxed at ordinary income tax rates, not at the special reduced rate for capital gains.

Both the Democratic candidates have promised not to raise taxes on middle-class Americans making $200,000 (Sen. Obama) and $250,000 (Sen. Clinton) a year. What, then, of Obama's promise to lift the current $96,000 cap on social security taxes? And what of Clinton's promise not to raise middle-class taxes to pay for her new health care and other programs when she doesn't spell out how she will pay for them?

As the Times concludes:

Perhaps the candidates are afraid the American people can't handle the truth about what it would take to meet the nation's economic challenges. Or perhaps they are underestimating those challenges.

In either case, it's hardly confidence-inspiring at a time of war and economic crisis.

There were a slew of articles today from around the country about the impact of federal budget cuts on local communities, particularly for local education programs (see below). These articles detail the impact of cuts on a wide variety of programs and constituencies, from summer school to youth vocational education, from a rape crisis hotline to arts and music classes, from school counseling to early-reading instruction.