Let's take a long-term view, not grapple for a short-term sticking plaster.
The problem, they say, is that the board generates rules that make it hard to balance the budget every year — like many states, Connecticut has a law requiring a balanced budget — by forcing legislators to grapple with long-term debts and other noncash items.
Moreover, the number of workers who are grappling with long-term job loss is probably far larger than the official number of long-term unemployed, as it does not include 1.1 million discouraged workers who want a job but are not currently looking for work, and many of the 1.7 million workers who have joined disability rolls because they cannot find a job.
Officials were only beginning to grapple with the long-term consequences.
It was set up three years ago by concerned former athletes who joined forces with Boston University scientists to grapple with the long-term effects of concussions on sportsmen and women, soldiers and other people subjected to brain injuries.
The next steps won't be easy: survivors and those around them will have to grapple with the long-term issues of mental health, family stability, and so much more; beyond that, the community will have to redefine itself, for there is no turning back the hands of time.
The company, analysts said, is also grappling with the long-term energy contracts associated with its energy trading business, which it decided to exit in 2002.
Along with its long-term pension funding problems, Illinois is grappling with a short-term budget deficit, largely stemming from reduced revenue, that it is trying to close in part with big tax increases.
That way, something might be done.But in truth, neither party has a serious plan for grappling with the long-term shortfall that will be caused by the baby-boomers' retirement.
But Mr. Hu may be the second most important man in the world, and he deserves a place in a Group of 9. On short- and long-term issues that the G-8 grapples with -- from dealing with North Korea to preventing global warming -- the two key players in the world are China and the U.S.
