Timely attention to these issues is important, not only for maintaining credibility, but because budgetary changes are less likely to create hardship or dislocations when the individuals affected are given adequate time to plan and adjust. In other words, addressing the country’s fiscal problems will require difficult choices, but postponing them will only make them more difficult. Thank you.
I would be pleased to take your questions. 5  These figures have been calculated by the Federal Reserve using the CBO’s estimates of the budgetary effects of selected policy alternatives to adjust the CBO’s baseline budget projection released in a recent report (see Congressional Budget Office (2010), The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2010 to 2020 (Washington: CBO, January).