The presidential candidates need to stop dancing around the economy and get straight with the American people. We are not in a run-of-the-mill, temporary economic slump. We're in a major upheaval.

Nobody should delude themselves that the rescue package passed by Congress last week will solve the nation's economic woes. That package, at best, is a short-term fix.

By Tuesday's debate, presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama had better be doing a whole lot more than repeating their conventional economic policies, which were drawn up long before the large-scale economic crisis was upon us.

Whichever candidate takes office in January will be in uncharted economic territory, coming off an orgy of incredibly reckless speculation. We will need a president with the willingness and capacity to engage in experimentation and innovation.

As a society, we will have to find ways to redirect our economic energies from financial speculation into productive activity. As New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman put it last week: "We need to get back to making stuff, based on real engineering, not just financial engineering."

Obama and McCain need to be candid with American people about the condition we're in:

• The official unemployment rate is 6.1 percent, but a broader measure puts it at 11 percent. Economists estimate that each percentage point of unemployment represents about 1.5 million people who have lost their jobs and can't find another one.

• Business borrowing, which fuels jobs, is drying up. It's now half of what it was in mid-2007. And UC Berkeley economist Brad DeLong believes it could dwindle to zero – yes, that's zero – in the last three months of this year.

• The national debt was $5.7 trillion when President Bush took office and is now more than $10 trillion. As a percentage of the U.S. gross domestic product, the debt has hit a 50-year high.

• Sales of new automobiles at General Motors, Ford, Toyota and other dealerships are down 33 percent on average over last year.

With lax lending standards, lenders went on a spree of exotic loans, and home prices soared to levels having no relation to actual value. When the bubble burst, prices began to decline. People couldn't refinance. We're seeing defaults and foreclosures. The $700 billion bailout package just passed by Congress does nothing to help struggling homeowners refinance into long-term fixed-rate mortgages. Troubled mortgages will continue to be a drag on the economy until this root issue is addressed.

What is going to be feasible come January? With Americans watching their 401(k)s and mutual funds take a big hit, retirement security will be a top issue. With layoffs, voluntary buyouts and the reduction of work hours, so will access to health insurance. And to fuel the economic boom of the future, the president will have to focus anew on access to quality education. To assure that goods and people can move, rebuilding and updating infrastructure will be essential.

In this last month before the election, Americans will need to begin to focus on the candidates' economic policy teams. Who's going to be guiding the economic ship if Obama is elected or if McCain is elected? This isn't a matter of insider political gossip. It matters. A lot.

The candidates need to begin preparing now so they can hit the ground running on Inauguration Day.