bailout

A recent piece in Time Magazine acknowledges the sad truth: when it comes to numbers in the trillions, the human mind slips into brain freeze at a speed faster than a field of dry ice. But that doesn't mean we can't understand what's going on.

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.