Rather, it's the long-run outlook.
Given that the deficit problem is fundamentally long-term in nature, it's crucial to avoid policies that worsen the long-run outlook.
Still, no less an authority than Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve chairman, has suggested that if recent gains in the growth rate of productivity hold up over the long run, then the outlook for Social Security, as for the economy, may be brighter than it now appears.
The government's new blueprint for economic growth in the long run is more global in outlook.
The long-run budget outlook is problematic, but short-term deficits aren't — and even the long-term outlook is much less frightening than the public is being led to believe.
While last year's recession and the costs of the war on terrorism played a role, he said, the bulk of the deteriorating fiscal outlook over the long run was attributable to the administration's emphasis on tax cuts.
Government health care spending is a major cause of our terrifying long-run budget outlook.
AMERICA'S long-run fiscal outlook is bleak, mostly because of an aging population and rising health care costs.
Think about it: The long-run budget outlook has darkened, which means that some hard choices must be made.
"We have tools that would bring unemployment down without worsening our long-run fiscal outlook, if we can only find the will and the wisdom to use them".
If you look, for example, at the CBO's long-run budget outlook, it assumes that productivity growth over the long term will be 1.7 percent a year (p. 34), which is roughly equal to average productivity growth since 1973.
