A stern warning from Rubin

http://blogs.chron.com/fulldisclosure/archives/2006/01/a_stern_warning.html

If you haven't already, it's worth reading former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin's Op-Ed piece ($) in the Wall Street Journal. It would be easy to dismiss Rubin on partisan grounds, but that would be a mistake. When he ran Treasury, he was a staunch supporter of a balanced budget, and his piece today is a call for greater fiscal responsibility.
To move forward, serious policy advocates from all perspectives should start by agreeing on two basic bedrock principles: that there is no free lunch; and that a strong future requires incurring costs now for benefits later. We should then put everything on the table. Our strategy should have four components:
(1) We should re-establish sound fiscal conditions for the intermediate term (the 10-year federal budget window) and put in place a real plan to get entitlements on a sound footing for the long term. (2) We need a strong public investment program -- paid for, not funded by increased public borrowing -- to promote productivity growth, to help those dislocated by technology and trade, and to equip all citizens to share in our economic well-being and growth. (3) We must pursue an international economic policy that continues global integration, especially multilaterally, and proactively addresses our other international economic interests, including combating global poverty. (4) We should work toward a regulatory regime that meets our needs and sensibly weigh risks and rewards.
Our strategy should reaffirm market-based economics as the most effective organizing principle for economic activity, while recognizing the critical role of government in providing the many requisites for economic success that markets, by their very nature, will not provide.
Regardless of your political views, our current fiscal policy -- which basically amounts to borrow and spend -- is unsustainable. The longer we wait to address the problems, the harder the choices get.