By Patricia Yarberry Allen

Our editor, Chris, Lombardi, organized our first live-blog chat last night. We really enjoyed our first foray into this immediate way of communicating.  Readers and contributors who are part of www.womensvoicesforchange.org along with millions of Americans, watched this last debate for the Presidential election of 2008.  We all have this sinking feeling that we have a lot to lose. 

We watched, knowing that the DOW had tanked again on the day of the debate, down 700 points from the previous day, in the midst of wild trading based on concerns about the recession and lack of confidence in the current government's plan to provide a plan that makes sense.

It worried me and the women in the group that shared their opinions with me during the debate that neither candidate was realistic about the cost of the current bail outs, and the cost of the programs that we all want for health care, infrastructure restoration, education, assistance to homeowners who are losing their homes and money for stabilizing the ever roiling waters of these turbulent financial market disasters. 

 How can we hope to do any of this if we spend 10 billion dollars a month on the war in Iraq?  And this doesn't cover the cost of caring for our wounded veterans and their families. How can we pay for any of this if taxes are cut?  We can't continue to print money  Our national debt, that is the debt that we, the American people, owe to Sovereign Funds, to the governments of  China, Russian, Japan, and the oil rich countries of the Mid-East will have to paid sometime.  We have learned what happens to businesses and to individuals when we spend spend spend with no thought to tomorrow.

We have 19 days left until each of us must choose a candidate.  I urge these candidates to address this, our most serious problem, with honor and honesty.  We are no longer part of the "magical thinking" that has fueled our overwrought spending for the past 40 years.  We want our Presidential candidates to convince us that they believe in us;  that they understand that we are capable of sacrifice;  that we understand that living on borrowed money is like a desperately ill person trying to live on borrowed time.

American voters do think.  We will not lose sight of the real issues while candidates try to force us to become victims to their focus on RED and BLUE hot buttons.  We are putting you on notice, Senators.  Stick to the issues or face the consequences.