4 answers voters deserve
Both candidates should be ready to answer tough questions on how they'd handle the crisis.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The reset button has been pushed on the global financial system - and that changes everything for the next president.
The expected results: a sharp slowdown in worldwide economic growth in 2009 and a lot of frustrated investors and workers.
Indeed, some economic experts, like Desmond Lachman, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, equate the challenges facing the next president to those encountered by Franklin D. Roosevelt when he took office in 1933.
But you wouldn't have guessed that listening to many of the candidates' responses at last week's debate in Nashville. To many crisis-related questions, the candidates managed to work in pitches for their plans to reform health care and address the country's growing energy challenges.
They'll get a second chance to be more on point Wednesday night at their third - and final - debate. And if this past week is any indication, they've gotten the message that they'll need to be. To mixed reviews, both Obama and McCain put out a bevy of new proposals to address some of Americans' crisis concerns related to the crisis.
But voters should demand something even more substantive from both men. Here are 4 questions to which the electorate deserves answers.
The Treasury secretary will be central to the next administration. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has been the main architect of the Bush administration's response to the mortgage meltdown and the resulting credit crisis. Most notably, he proposed the core of the $700 billion financial rescue plan.
McCain said last week it's important to choose a Treasury secretary in whom Americans have trust and confidence. Obama said the post should be filled by someone with an eye on the welfare of the middle class, and in particular on jobs and incomes.
They both seemed to agree that renowned investor Warren Buffett "would be a pretty good choice," as Obama put it. Buffett has said he's a fan of Paulson. Might either candidate ask Paulson to stay on for some period? And if not, who else is on their short list?
Buffett has said he's also a big fan of FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair. She's been instrumental in negotiating the acquisition of failing banks to minimize the government's cost and was virtually alone in official Washington a year ago when she called on lenders to systematically prevent foreseeable defaults by streamlining modifications of adjustable-rate mortgages before borrowers got in trouble.
When asked last week whether he expected the economy to get worse before it gets better, Obama said, "No, I am confident about the American economy. But we're going to have to have some leadership from Washington that ... sets out much better regulations for the financial system."
In response to the same question, McCain said "I think it depends on what we do," indicating that the economy wouldn't get worse if the government can "stabilize the housing market" and "get rid of the cronyism and special interest influence in Washington."
Neither candidate made a particularly compelling case when asked what they would ask Americans to sacrifice to "get out of the economic morass we're now in." McCain said spending cuts were on tap - but that's what he's been saying regardless of economic conditions. And he didn't say how he might curb the costs of some of his own pricey proposals. Obama, meanwhile, said Americans should watch how they use energy and made vague reference to creating a volunteer corps to help renew America.
No one anticipated the speed and breadth of the credit crisis impact, but there were warning signs.
Economists have expressed concern that consumers loans - such as credit card debt and car loans - which also have been bundled into securities and traded like mortgages - could be the next shoe to drop.
Obama said energy and health care would be his No. 1 and 2 priorities come January. McCain, meanwhile, said he thinks he can start to attack those issues plus Social Security and Medicare reform in his first year.
Both candidates stress that they want to continue to offer the tax cuts they've proposed.
Any president worth his salt needs to level with the public about what they're in for and how he's going to handle it.
"The financial crisis and the likely, possibly severe, recession will dominate the agenda for at least the next year. They will knock the candidates' promises, such as health care, off the top of the list," said Alice Rivlin, economic studies director at the Brookings Institution. Rivlin nevertheless believes there is an argument to be made for spending money on economic stimulus in the short-term.
As for the candidates' promises of more tax cuts, AEI's Lachman said, "they're just not going to have the dough to do it." 
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