Should such misalignment occur, while short-term gaps may be resolved, long-term gaps remain unresolved or may even expand, i.e., things get "better before worse".
The timing of planned acquisitions of future frigates, offshore patrol vessels and new submarines "is likely to produce short-term and long-term gaps in demand for shipyard production, facilities, services and workers", it said.
Of those that do, six in 10 told the BMA survey there were or had been long-term gaps in their rota – compared with less than half in last year's survey.
Despite all of the talk of shared sacrifice and of not filling in long-term gaps with short-term federal stimulus dollars, Gov. David Paterson of New York and other Democratic leaders have produced a budget that is now up to $131 billion — a whopping $10 billion more than last year's.
Hospitals are pushing young medics to the brink of "burnout" by relying on them to work extra hours to plug long-term gaps in ward rotas, leading doctors have warned, after new research showed that the effects of NHS staff shortages are worsening.
I mean, we're talking about a long-term gap between expenditure and revenue of $45 trillion.
By contrast, the Bush administration estimated last year that the long-term gap was $18 trillion over the next 75 years.
But closing the projected long-term gap between Social Security spending and revenues and materially slowing the growth in Medicare and Medicaid spending will take much longer.
One such theme is to rely much more on "privatization" to address the long-term gap between retirement needs for the baby boom generation and tax revenues accumulating in the Social Security and Medicare trust funds.
While there are plenty of companies offering long-term, gap-year travel insurance and plenty offering cover for those with pre-existing medical conditions, trying to find a policy combining both of these is proving difficult.
There should be no net increase in budget deficits; indeed, other taxes (a carbon tax?) should be gradually increased to help close the long-term gap between federal spending and taxes.
