No Sellout Here: CED Focuses on the Future

The Committee for Economic Development (CED) and Concord Coalition recently released a report that is both stunningly clear, and vitally important: Exploding Deficits, Declining Growth: The Federal Budget and the Aging of America. CED's Press Release stresses (1) that short-term economic stimulus should be accompanied by long-term budget balance (2) that the budget process should be straightforward and avoid gimmicks designed to hide deficits (3) that Social Security and Medicare should be reformed (4) that defense and security spending should be as cost-effective and flexible as possible (5) that growth in non-security discretionary spending should be reduced (6) that education reform should be adequately funded, and (7) that revenue increases should be put back on the table.

The Joint Statement released by the two groups concludes: "Deficits do matter. They lower future economic growth by reducing the level of national savings that can be devoted to productive investments.... Bringing the deficit back under control will not be easy. But the longer we wait to take action, the more difficult our choices become."

Links:
Committee for Economic Development
Concord Coalition
Centrists.Org No-BS Long-Term Budget Baseline (revised 5/24/2003)

Posted by Jeff Lemieux at May 29, 2003 07:28 AM