Oct. 6--We have performed the emergency procedure. The patient should be able to breathe again.

Now comes the hard part -- finding a treatment that will restore the patient to health.

That's what Congress and the presidential candidates should be thinking in the aftermath of last week's adoption of a plan to rescue the economy from a credit crisis.

The plan gives the country a good chance to head off the crisis that threatened to suffocate the economy. But that's just a first step.

The economy remains plagued by the ailments that led to the crisis in the first place.

What's required now is leadership from the next president and Congress to confront the policy failures that contributed to the economy's condition -- and change those policies.

With that in mind, here are some of the reforms that ought to be on Washington's agenda now:

Fix the flaws in regulations that allowed the financial industry -- especially government-sponsored Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- to take on more risk than it could handle.

Repair Medicare and Social Security.

These two programs will fall more than $80 trillion short of meeting their promised payouts over the next 75 years. That huge deficit shakes confidence in America's ability to pay its debts and makes the economy's condition more fragile.

Rein in the federal budget deficit.

Washington does the same thing with the federal budget that it does with Medicare and Social Security -- charge the costs and dump the bill on future generations.

Furthermore, interest payments on the federal debt are more than $400 billion a year, which means there is less money to invest in education, infrastructure, research and other foundations of economic growth.

Update energy policy.

America's economy runs on oil, a resource that is rising in cost as the world's supply dwindles. While Washington has installed policies to encourage development of alternative energy sources, those efforts merit a higher priority.

Government's influence over the economy is limited. Government cannot repeal the business cycle, nor can it remove from human nature the greed and fear that feeds that cycle.

But government should create public policies that give the economy its best long-term chances for success.

Wisconsin's congressional delegation should help bring those policies forward.

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