Both candidates for president failed to tell the truth about the biggest issues facing the country: spending, taxes and deficits.

Every reasonable and realistic person in Washington — and, yes, there are some left — knows that any “grand bargain” must involve both higher revenues and reduced benefits. But since those options are unpopular, both candidates hid behind frothy and fraudulent promises that no real sacrifice would be required — at least by their own party’s core constituents.

President Barack Obama essentially said that soaking the rich would solve the problem. Republican Mitt Romney said that lowering taxes and cutting regulation would magically create new profits and comfortable surpluses. They were both dissembling, and they both knew it.

But that was during the campaign, when both men were scrambling for votes in an extremely close election. Now that the election is over, it’s time to get serious. It’s time to take risks and say unpopular things. It’s time for leadership.

Of course, that’s easy to say and hard to do. Gridlock is a more likely outcome than progress. Ideologues on both sides are digging in for trench warfare and sending out signals that any hint of compromise will be met by immediate cries of betrayal.