If Congress were to simply follow the budget path laid out in current law, the federal government might escape some of its widely anticipated fiscal problems over the next few years. But that is a big “if,” as became clear Friday at a forum at the University of New Hampshire School of Law.

In the keynote speech, Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics, said he was more optimistic than many economists about the nation’s prospects and the likelihood that Washington would move the country onto a more sustainable track.

Robert L. Bixby, executive director of The Concord Coalition, offered a more guarded assessment of the nation’s fiscal problems and noted the possibility that elected officials could stray far from the promising budget path laid out by current law. “The catch is following through,” he said.

The forum was sponsored by the law school, the Whittemore School of Business and Economics, the New Hampshire Business and Industry Association, and Concord. It was part of “Next-Generation Matters,” a series of conversations in New Hampshire about the country’s economic future.

Despite this year’s political squabbles over increasing the federal debt limit, Zandi said, elected officials in both parties see the need to...

President Obama deserves credit for putting Medicare and Medicaid on the table for deficit-reduction efforts and for encouraging the new super committee to exceed its assigned goal. But the President’s  new proposals to that panel, released today, fall short of comprehensive structural reform in health care and tax policy, and his decision to leave Social Security out of the plan is disappointing as well.

Amid growing concerns about a double-dip recession, the administration has focused this month largely on short-term measures to support the economy. These measures should not preclude putting long-term deficit reduction plans in place, and in fact such plans can dramatically boost the effectiveness of the short-term initiatives.

So Obama’s suggestion that Washington proceed on both the short- and long-term fronts is welcome.  So is his willingness to discuss changes in Medicare and Medicaid, two of the federal government’s largest and most rapidly growing programs. Significant changes will be needed in those programs  if the nation is to have any hope of eventually putting itself on a more responsible and sustainable fiscal course.

The proposals to change other mandatory spending programs, such as cutting agriculture subsidies and increased cost-sharing in...

Members of the new Congressional Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction will have a threshold decision to make: Do they want to take their mandate seriously?

If the answer is yes, they will likely have to make decisions in the public interest that will not sit well with the party leaders who appointed them. If the answer is no, they will heighten public frustration with the political process and risk deep automatic cuts in programs many of them care about.

Which should it be?

The answer is obvious. In hard times, the national interest always tops narrow or partisan concerns. And yet, pressure on members of the committee to fiercely protect the interests of favored constituencies will be enormous. It has already begun in the form of intense lobbying of party leaders to only appoint “safe” members who are firmly opposed to compromise. 

Arrayed against this pressure is the stark reality that we can’t fund future spending commitments with today’s level of taxation. Unless someone steps up to the challenge of reconciling the competing values and needs of a diverse society, our nation will suffer the consequences -- not just within some artificial 10-year “budget window,” but for decades to come. 

Failure to confront this challenge got us into the fiscal ditch we’re in. The Joint Committee has...

The partisan vortex in Washington is now so strong that it threatens to swallow all rational thought.

As the nation rushes closer to default, politicians are rushing to their respective partisan corners. At times they truly seem more interested in blaming each other for causing a crisis than they are with preventing a crisis from happening. It is little wonder that credit ratings agencies such as Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s have repeatedly questioned whether U.S. Treasury bonds can maintain their AAA status.  The scenario they fear, which becomes more likely by the day, is not so much that the U.S. can’t pay its bills but that it will refuse to do so.

For a brief time last week, President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner appeared ready to challenge their respective political bases. Hopes were raised for a “big deal” that would include essential compromises on popular entitlement programs and tax breaks to reduce the deficit by roughly $4 trillion over 10 years. It was a good idea, but it didn’t last long.

Instead of looking at what the nation might gain in fiscal sustainability, politicians on both sides looked with horror at what they might lose in terms of partisan finger-pointing. A big deal would mean that Republicans could no longer accuse Democrats of trying to kill the economy with...