i'm particularly pleased to have allen auerbach here to kick off our first purely fiscal event at hutchins. allen taught me most of what i know about public finance, first as my professor in graduate school, then at the joint committee on taxation where we again overlapped. i still tote around my notebook from allen's public finance class at harvard and have referred to it many times over the years. so i know what he has to say is worth paying careful attention to and remembering. so without further ado, please welcome allen auerbach. >> thank you very much,the titl. it is a very certain title. there's more uncertainty in the paper as well as in the subject. to start, as louise said, long-term projections for the path of federal revenues and spending show a significant imbalance under current policy. now of course, that in itself is a question that one has to deal with, what is current policy. there are disagreements about the best way to think about that. nevertheless, i think under reasonable analysis of assumptions about what current policy is, there is a significant imbalance between e