Our country is facing a fiscal crisis. Millions of Americans are unemployed. Millions more are underemployed. People continue to lose their homes, and the future looks bleak for poor and middle-income citizens. We need to hear specific details for solutions in the remaining presidential debate.

Neither Republicans nor Democratic politicians have offered answers with satisfactory details, in these two presidential debates, only words, not detailed plans or specific solutions. Both sides are afraid that if they spell out the full implications of their intentions, they will lose voters.

Right now, the nation has more than $16 trillion in debt, and it keeps growing. It grew by $1.1 trillion alone during President Barack Obama’s administration this year. A lot of that debt is owed to foreign countries. We will all have to start paying this debt off in the near future.

We all know that we cannot spend more than we earn, but governments have been doing this for a long time. When we personally go into debt, we have to find ways to pay back what we owe. Now cities and states are learning hard lessons about the cost of indebtedness. Budgets are being slashed and programs are being eliminated. Many of them have been good programs, but we can no longer afford them.

The federal government needs to learn how to budget with less debt, too. Both President Obama and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney need to level with the American people about what they will really cut and what they will really tax. Neither side’s proposals add up to what is needed to put the country on the right track to rejump economic growth.

Romney can’t balance the budget just with tax cuts and closing loopholes, and Obama can’t do it just by taxing millionaires. There isn’t enough money on the table in either of their proposals. We really need some give and take by both sides.

If politicians can’t cooperate with each other and give honest replies to specific questions asked of them in the debate, how can they work together and collaborate with the opposite political party for the good of all of the American people? Politicians should work together, with bipartisanship collaboration, not tearing each other apart by being totally negative or non-responsive to their colleagues across the aisle.

The presidential debates have been good for American viewers. They can see the gestures and body language; hear true or false allegations by each politician; get some transparency on current policies involving foreign relations issues, jobs, illegal and legal immigration concerns, educational opportunities, economic security and health issues; and hear detailed problem solving actions that make the economy grow.

There is still one more debate to be held. In that debate, the public needs to hear specific, direct answers to each question. Questions should not be danced around with non-relevant replies to evade questions for their own political gain. The final presidential debate may well determine who will win the election, by showing us how the winning candidate will make life better for us, our families and our economy after the November election.

For many middle-class wage earners, an unacceptable alternative for managing the future is to redistribute their income and add more taxes to what they have. That seems patently unfair. Middle-income families lost 5 percent of their income and 28 percent of their wealth over the last decade, according to the Pew Research Report.

Many business owners recognize that taxes should go up and they are willing to accept it as a cost to do business and earn a living. These businessmen and women feel it is necessary to get tax revenues back in line, and they are willing to share in the pain, as long as government does its part by cutting back on entitlement programs, wasteful spending and reducing the staffing of government departments and programs.

Obama and Romney need to submit details to the American public on how they plan to reduce our debt, and what entitlement spending cuts they will make to help our economy, reduce our deficits and unfunded debts, among other fiscal problems.

We need answers from our leaders on how they are willing to change the course of our economy and its growth, increase jobs and the direction we are going in the future. We should know the answers to these questions before we go to the ballot box in November.

— Bernard Featherman is a business columnist for the Journal Tribune and former president of the Biddeford-Saco Chamber of Commerce.