Yesterday President Obama said the nation would have to make "tough choices" about the federal budget. Tonight, possibly, he'll tell us what those choices actually are.

Forgoing a new fleet of presidential helicopters would be a start – although they do sound pretty cool. But when you're running a $1.3 trillion deficit and have a national debt heading for $11 trillion, saving $11.2 billion on choppers is only a start. That's how big the problem is.

So tonight, President Obama has a chance to give the American people the first thing they need to grapple with the federal budget: honesty. Yesterday's "fiscal responsibility summit" and tonight's speech seem to be setting the scene for the budget he's due to submit to Congress Thursday. But if the public going to accept this budget, or any budget, they're going to need to know what our problems are, where they're coming from, and what we might do about them.

The president has an extremely tough political sales job ahead of him. He's got to persuade the public to accept enormous spending now, to try and jump-start the economy, while at the same time taking on the problems threatening to break the bank on Medicare and Social Security. And he has to do this while reassuring the public that tax dollars are being well spent, because that kind of public trust is a prerequisite for any significant changes to the budget.

That would make for a pretty good speech. We'll see what the president gives us tonight.