Elections are in part a referendum on the past, but their more important function is to help map a path toward the future. Increasingly, that future, at least in the short term, appears gloomy. But the major candidates for president have yet to adjust either their plans or their rhetoric to that reality.

Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama continues to tout proposals for new spending that total more than $290 billion a year, according to the National Taxpayers Union. Republican John McCain's proposals would add more than $92 billion a year in new expenditures.

All of this spending presumably would be added despite passage of a $700 billion financial rescue package, an economy careening toward recession, an enormous budget deficit and a record national debt.

Heading into Tuesday's debate, the candidates also had not addressed in detail the impending shortfalls in Medicare and Social Security. The trustees for those two massive entitlement programs warned this spring that the Medicare trust fund will be depleted by 2019. The Social Security trust fund will vanish by 2041, and payments to retired Americans will exceed the program's income in 2017. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson — yes, the same official who led last week's rescue of the banking industry — warned back in March that the nation is facing a fiscal calamity unless substantive changes are made in how Social Security and Medicare operate.

Those warnings aren't new. Each year the trustees issue a projection of when the programs will run out of money. Each year the president and Congress nod their heads in understanding, and then return to business as usual.

Whether McCain or Obama, the new president must change that pattern. And not just with the entitlement programs but also in attacking budget deficits and the exploding national debt. It starts with a realistic conversation with voters about what must be done, including specific budget cuts and in some cases delays in promised programs.

After witnessing Wall Street's recent meltdown, Americans may finally be ready to hear a tough message about fiscal responsibility. Just as the nation's housing bubble finally burst, leading to the near collapse of the financial industry, so too one day will the federal government's debt bubble. Without substantive changes in how Congress and the White House spend money, the damage that eventually will be inflicted on the nation will make the current crisis seem minor.

The nation needs its leaders to talk realistically about fiscal challenges. Rosy campaign promises are of the past. This year, true change would mean political leaders willing to acknowledge the hard times that lie ahead.

REPRINTED FROM THE INDIANAPOLIS STAR.

DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.