This is a woman who was at the bottom of the barrel and scraped her way back up, got out and made it and now she has to climb out of a really big deficit and I think that's her challenge.
"If you step back, if you look at the really big picture, the deficit outlook has clearly changed for the better," said Rudolph G. Penner, director of the Congressional Budget Office.
If big deficits are really a sign that the government is borrowing money that private businesses need, than interest rates should rise when deficits rise, because the government would be competing with business for the same pool of money.
Here is how Mr. Summers explained it: "In 1993, here's what the situation was: Capital costs were really high, the trade deficit was really big, and if you looked at a graph of average wages and the productivity of American workers, those two graphs lay on top of each other.
Much of the Washington establishment -- insofar as such a thing exists -- really does want a big deficit deal and really is furious at the Republicans and the Democrats and everyone else they perceive as standing in the way.
And if the Republicans don't want to reduce outlays, would they join Bernie Sanders in supporting tax hikes, really big ones if necessary, to stop deficit spending?
"The Bush agenda really amounts to a big tax giveaway, big deficits, big debt and blank cheques to all the special interests".
In other words, we have zero evidence of deficits posing a problem, just people running around Washington yelling about really big numbers.
Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the No. 2 Senate Republican and a member of the deficit reduction panel, said this proposal was "a big step, a really big step," for Republicans who had adamantly opposed tax increases.
"With a budget deficit already at 3.5percentt of G.D.P.," Mr. Roach said, "that's a really big deal".
