Addressing our medium-term fiscal problem

Barry Eichengreen:

Addressing our medium-term fiscal problem will require spending restraint, a maxim to which all political factions pay lip service even while failing to offer credible, detailed plans for turning principle into practice. It will involve bending the health-care cost curve rather than imagining that public support for health care for the poor and elderly can be made magically to go away. And it will require revenue enhancement to pay for the infrastructure and education necessary for the U.S. to compete in the 21st century.