Wee $20 trillion deficit candidates’ No. 1 prob

I ’M going

to ruin your day by telling you something you probably already suspect: Both Donald

Trump and Hillary Clinton are lying to you.

“Misleading” may be a more genteel word, but I don’t feel like pulling any punches today.

Neither one is telling the truth. It’s hard to tell whether the two actually know the full extent to which they are being untruthful.

On what, you ask? Their economic promises.

Hillary has a Ph.D. in lying (not to mention thievery) and Trump, well, he might be about to teach a graduate school course on the subject. Let me say two things up front: 1) I still believe that in just a few weeks, when Hillary’s 33,000 personal e-mails are made public and we learn some unpleasant truths, that Madame Secretary will be rendered unelectable.

2) The second thing you need to know is that politicians make prom- ises they can’t keep just to get elected. No surprise there, but it needs to be said just in case your brain has gone numb because of all the talking. Now back to the lies. Hillary says she’ll make rich people pay more in taxes so poor people will pay less and get stuff like child care help, cheaper college educations and whatever else they want.

She’d also like to expand the estate tax to include more rich people. And, if you ask real nicely, Hillary would probably promise to fill your Christmas stocking if you vote for her.

Trump goes the other way on economic issues. He’d cut the top corporate tax rate to 35 percent (like any company pays that anyway), raise the minimum wage (which is rising anyway) and, with his lovely daughter Ivanka leading the charge, make the workplace a better place for women.

There are a lot more issues and they are constantly changing, but you get the point.

Hillary is favoring people who don’t have a lot of money; Trump’s proposals look like they benefit the rich and corporations with the hope that everyone benefits in the end when the economy perks up.

Now, forget all that. There’s a simple truth that gets in the way of any and all promises: America already has a deficit of almost $20 trillion, and the hole got bigger by an astounding $616 billion in the fiscal year that’s ending this week.

With numbers like that, nobody is going to be able to make any changes to the tax code.

Nobody is going to be able to give anybody anything.

No new money will be able to be spent by Washington.

Fiscal policy — aka government spending — is dead.

All Trump or Hillary will be able to do is shift current spending from one group of Americans to another. In the end, there will be a zero-sum gain for the economy — and the outcries from the losing groups in this parlor game will probably abort any of the promised changes.

I haven’t even gotten to the real problem yet.

The $616 billion deficit rung up this fiscal year came while interest rates were super low. Once the Federal Reserve raises rates, Washington will have to pay more to borrow money. And even if the rate rise is tiny, the US debt and deficit will rise a lot because of its size.

I can’t put numbers on what higher rates will do to the deficit and neither can anyone else. That’s because there’s no telling how high the financial markets will push rates once the Fed gets them going. Sorry for ruining your day. But I feel you’ll be thanking me later. The way I figure it, someone has to inject the reality of America’s uncomfortable financial position into the political discussion.

But it’s rude to criticize without offering an alternative, so here is mine. Again.

Since the two main cures for the economic blues — government spending (fiscal policy) and lower interest rates (monetary policy) — are just about all used up, there needs to be a new idea introduced into the discussion.

Change the rules on how people can spend and invest their IRA, 401(k) and Keogh plans. Allow them to invest some of the $15 trillion or so in these accounts in real estate and see if that stimulates the economy.

Put whatever restrictions you want on this plan to protect folks from spending too much or specu- lating too much. I don’t care.

For at least two reasons, it’s the kind of stimulus that neither Congress nor the Fed can provide.

First, my plan will cost the government nothing.

Second, it won’t increase the deficit. In fact, it would raise government revenue and maybe even create a surplus by pushing people to buy real estate.

Without fresh, new ideas, we will spend months and years discussing recycled economic plans that are doomed to fail. Hillary may not know this, but there is already a tax benefit for child care — and adult care, as well. Using a Flexible Spending Account that your employer can set up, taxpayers can set aside up to $5,000 in pretax money toward child care and what is known as dependent care. So, Washington is essentially kicking back whatever taxes you would have paid on that $5,000 to help pay for child care. How much more generous can it get than that?