OK. So, I’m obviously joking. But now that I have your attention, it looks like we are set to go through the entire 2024 election cycle without a serious discussion on spending, deficits or the debt.

As depressing as that might be, it is probably what voters want.

There was an opportunity to discuss the issue a few weeks back. But the debate that ended Joe Biden’s political career will go down in history as just that. It certainly won’t be remembered for any meaningful inquiry into the current fiscal state of the nation.

When the topic of the debt did come up, neither candidate offered meaningful answers: Donald Trump said that in his first term we were “ready to start paying down debt.” Biden suggested that by simply raising taxes on the country's thousand billionaires we could “wipe out this debt.” Trump’s answer probably has enough ambiguity to avoid a complete refutation. Biden’s was nowhere close to being accurate: if you took $1 billion from one thousand people, you’d raise $1 trillion. That’s less than 3 percent of the current debt.

Social Security was also discussed. Sort of. The program is facing an across-the-board automatic benefit cut of roughly 25 percent by 2035. And while it hasn’t yet contributed one penny to the national debt (please allow that to sink in) it is certainly a pressing fiscal matter. Biden’s nearly........

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