There are several directions he could go in. But interviews with several close observers of the issue yielded one thing they said he must do above all: make a compelling case to the American people that painful and unpalatable measures to put the nation’s books in order are necessary, and that all Americans will be negatively affected by such actions in the years ahead.
“He has to prepare the country for the kinds of tough choices that are required to stabilize the debt,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget…
“There may well be US public debt tremors this year, both during federal debate over raising the debt ceiling and with at least a limited number of crises in local and city governments. The bigger problem, though, lies beyond 2011, as the unsustainability of the federal government’s fiscal trajectory becomes increasingly clear,” said Peter Orszag, Obama’s former White House budget director, in an op-ed published online by the Financial Times late Thursday night.
“I hope it does not ultimately require a crisis to restore fiscal sustainability at the federal level, but I fear it will,” Orszag said, in one of the more ominous pronouncements by a prominent economic official to date.
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