Bernanke Says U.S. Should Tackle Debt

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Wednesday that huge U.S. budget deficits threaten the nation's long-term economic health and should be addressed soon. Obama administration officials have argued that the economy, while improving, is still too weak to bear all the new taxes and spending cuts that would come with an aggressive deficit-reduction campaign. In remarks to the Dallas Chamber of Commerce Wednesday, Mr. Bernanke agreed, but said merely articulating a plan for reducing the deficit in the long run would help the economy now."The economist John Maynard Keynes said that in the long run, we are all dead. If he were around today he might say that, in the long run, we are all on Social Security and Medicare," Mr. Bernanke said.
Cutting the deficit ultimately will mean choosing between cutting those entitlements, raising taxes, or other spending cuts