Instead, Mr Obama urgently needs to make deficit-reduction one of the dominant themes of his fightback.
Because that money needs -- the needs for that money in terms of deficit reduction and investments in clean energy are far higher priorities.
But we think that to get the rest of the way there and get the medium-term deficit down to where it needs to be requires a bipartisan process and that's what we're pursuing.
And that suggests that should Congress and the next administration engage in a major deficit reduction plan, long-term care needs could easily be ignored, swept away by much more powerful tides of fiscal austerity.
FORBES: Long-Term Care: A Forgotten Issue in the Presidential Campaign
Its businesses are internationalising faster, and its persistent current-account deficit and bad infrastructure mean it badly needs foreign investment.
ECONOMIST: China��s banking system is not a good model for India
And it is worth remembering that slower domestic spending and higher saving is exactly what America needs to correct its current-account deficit.
America's government, for instance, needs a medium-term plan for deficit reduction, but cutting back spending viciously in the short term at a time of private-sector retrenchment would be a mistake.
Lower growth than that would make the public debt harder to bear and scare off the foreign capital that India needs to fund its current-account deficit and pay for its imported energy.
And we believe that we can reach an agreement on significant deficit reduction within the same timeframe that we need -- that Congress needs to take action to raise the debt ceiling.
Still, an investment-grade rating is handy if, like India, you run a current-account deficit and hope to attract foreigners to help finance your vast infrastructure needs over the next decade.
But it does -- your question goes right to my earlier point, and right to the statements that Secretary Geithner made yesterday, which is we are pursuing deficit reduction aggressively at the same time -- and within the same timeframe that Congress needs to take action on raising the debt ceiling.
The president needs to address the fiscal cliff as well as the out-of-control deficit.
India also needs to keep rates high enough to attract foreign capital and offset the current-account deficit, in order to keep the rupee from weakening and making inflation worse.
应用推荐