Thomas Donlan of Barron’s isn’t waiting for Election Day to deliver some advice to the next president.

President Barack Obama settled one issue, and it wasn’t health care. Trillion-dollar deficits now are a respectable, bipartisan way to fight recessions. As a corollary, half-trillion-deficits are the new normal fiscal policy when there is no recession. This is either a milestone of economic science or a millstone around the neck of U.S. governance.

Reminders of Obama’s bottom line are worth repeating, even though the example is not: $7.8 trillion of federal borrowing from fiscal 2009 through fiscal 2016, and raising the federal debt held by the public from $5.8 trillion to $14 trillion (from 39% to 77% of gross domestic product). Gross federal debt, which includes Treasury borrowing from Social Security and other “entitlement” trust funds, has risen $8.8 trillion, from $10.6 trillion to $19.3 trillion (74% to 105% of GDP).

Obama is not the only politician responsible for the nation’s debt. Congress enacts the appropriations and revenue laws. Obama’s party controlled the House for only two of his eight years, and it controlled the Senate for six years.

Both parties are responsible for the fiscal disaster: They do what they believe will get them re-elected, which means voters are ultimately responsible for what is done in their names. As James Capretta of the American Enterprise Institute commented recently, “Voters do not really care about government deficits and debt, even if they sometimes tell pollsters otherwise. What voters really care about is how government programs and tax policies affect their personal finances.”

This largely accounts for the peculiar fact that the Democratic and Republican candidates for president this year disagree only on details of their fiscal plans. Their big-picture plan is to do nothing about the big picture, except lay claims to magical growth-stimulating powers for tax cuts and investments in education and infrastructure. Here are a couple of sample remarks from each candidate:

Donald Trump: “I’ll be reducing taxes tremendously from 35% to 15% on companies, small and large businesses. That’s going to be a job creator like we haven’t seen since Ronald Reagan. It’s going to be a beautiful thing.…If we do 6% or 7% [GDP growth] under my plan, everybody benefits in jobs.”

Hillary Clinton: “The time has come to make America the world’s clean-energy superpower. These investments will create millions of jobs.…More growth means more jobs and more new businesses. More jobs give people choices about where to work. That’s why economists say that getting closer to full employment is crucial for raising incomes.”

We shouldn’t believe either of them. Getting the U.S. economy up to steady 3% growth won’t take care of the aging population and its health-care bill. Even 6% or 7% growth won’t take care of the bills coming due, and we don’t have that kind of economy anyway.