i am pleased to have alan auerbach here to kick off the first fiscal event. he taught me most of what i know about public finance first as my professor and then at a joint coalition. i still bring my notebook around from harvard days of him teaching so i know what he says is worth paying attention. without further ado, please welcome alan auerbach. [applause] >> thank you very much. this is the title of my paper and it is a very certain title. there is more uncertainty in the paper as well as in the subject. so to start long-term projections for the path of federal revenue and spending show a significant imbalance under current policy. now, of course, that in itself is a question that one has to deal with and that is what is current policy. there are disagreements about the best way to think about that but nevertheless under a reasoninable analysis about what current policy is there is a significant imbalance between expenditures and revenue that lead to a large fiscal gap. something that is measured peri periodcally. they are much larger than adjustments we