"But effective health reforms would take decades to produce savings. In the meantime, White House budget director Peter R. Orszag acknowledged, 'there are additional steps that will be necessary.''The administration is very concerned about these [future] deficits, and getting those deficits under control is a top priority of the administration,' Orszag told reporters this week as he rolled out a new economic forecast that added $2 trillion to deficit projections from 2010 to 2019.
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and White House economic adviser Lawrence H. Summers have both delicately sidestepped the tax question on Sunday talk shows. Orszag has also refused to discuss what steps Obama might take to reduce the deficit in the budget blueprint he will present to Congress in February. But budget analysts say he has few real options.
'If you rule out inflating our way out of the problem and defaulting on the debt, there are two ways: Cut spending or raise taxes,' said William G. Gale, an expert on fiscal policy at the Brookings Institution."
Notice what Gale says next:
"With more than 80 percent of federal spending devoted to politically untouchable programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, he said, 'it's going to be really hard to make significant headway on the spending side. So that means you've got to think about taxes.' "Do you see the disconnect between what he says here, and what this administration and Congress propose to do, and indeed has already done?
More importantly, what's the right course of action (or lack thereof) for our federal government to take NOW?
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