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Doug Mills/The New York Times
"Addressing the government's own imbalances will require scrutiny of both spending and taxes," Alan Greenspan said yesterday.

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Text: Greenspan's Prepared Testimony



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Greenspan Says Federal Budget Deficits Are 'Unsustainable'
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

Published: March 3, 2005

WASHINGTON, March 2 - Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve, warned on Wednesday that the federal budget deficits were "unsustainable," and he urged Congress to scrutinize both spending and taxes to solve the problem.

Mr. Greenspan also warned that the deficits could be driven sharply higher by costs connected to the aging of the baby boom generation, particularly entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare. While reiterating his support for President Bush's plan to offer private accounts as part of overhauling Social Security, Mr. Greenspan urged lawmakers to tackle the program's problems now, rather than later.

The assessment was Mr. Greenspan's gloomiest to date about the government's budget straits. Unless Congress takes major action to reduce the deficits, preferably, he said, by deep cuts in spending, annual budgetary shortfalls will continue and closing those gaps will become even more difficult.

Though Mr. Greenspan has made similar pleas in the past, he spoke more urgently on Wednesday and disagreed more adamantly with Republican lawmakers and Mr. Bush, who have steadfastly refused to put restrictions on new tax cuts....