To judge from the rhetoric on the political left, one would imagine that the 2008 presidential election will pave the way for the second coming of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal or Lyndon Johnson's Great Society.

Very big plans are being discussed, with a particular emphasis on universal health coverage. The price tag for U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton's health care plan: $110 billion. For Sen. Barack Obama's: $50 billion to $65 billion.

With the first completely open presidential election in more than 50 years, candidates are yielding to the temptation to promise the moon. Republicans aren't immune. Just the other day, GOP contender Mitt Romney shamelessly sought to woo Michigan by touting a $20 billion investment in that state's auto sector alone.

If history is set to repeat, however, the most likely prospect for the next president is something far less grand than a new New Deal. Instead, expect a repeat of Bill Clinton's experience from the mid-1990s.

That's when Clinton officials, facing severe budget deficits, had to ratchet down their spending plans and join with Republicans to stop the budgetary hemorrhaging.

Clinton complained that he'd come into office promising bold new programs and that he and his administration had turned into boring, budget-balancing "Eisenhower Republicans." But the public was right to demand fiscal discipline, and Washington politicians were right to bend to the demand.

A news analysis last week from Bloomberg News explained the magnitude of the fiscal challenges that await the next president. Economist Louis Crandall stated that "if we have a recession and a stimulus package, we're looking at something from a $300 (billion) to $400 billion deficit for 2009."

The deficit last year stood at $163 billion. The federal government probably won't produce a deficit lower than that for at least the next five to 10 years, economist Ed McKelvey, with the Goldman Sachs investment bank, told Bloomberg News.

The fiscal pressures will come from powerful factors: Ever-growing entitlements. The costs of restraining the tax bite from the alternative minimum tax (originally intended to apply only to the wealthy but now extending its reach into middle-class households). The major costs associated with maintaining the United States' global military presence.

"We have a big hole to crawl out of," Robert Bixby, head of the Concord Coalition, a balanced-budget advocacy group, observed to Bloomberg News. "Any sort of major initiative by the next president is going to be very difficult to do."

That's right. But don't expect that sort of truth-telling from the presidential hopefuls. They're too busy on the campaign trail making unrealistic promises about the next four years.