-San Francisco Chronicle, November 12, 2010 by Carolyn Lochhead
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/11/12/MNP81GAM81.DTL

“There’s nothing here that comes as a surprise to many groups in Washington and academics who have thought about the size of the budget imbalance,” Auerbach said. “We know how big it is and we know where money is, but to citizens who aren’t so familiar, this will probably come as a shock.”

-The New York Times, November 13, 2010 by David Leonhardt
http://nyti.ms/cuNrXT

The country cannot wait until 2030 to implement most of the changes, notes Alan Auerbach, an economics professor at the University of California at Berkeley. If it did, the interest on the national debt could become crushingly large. Deficit cutting will probably be a regular part of politics for the next couple of decades.

The Wall Street Journal, November 5, 2010 by Jonathan Weisman
http://on.wsj.com/afmB4m

Two years ago in London, Mr. Obama and his economic team were greeted at the G-20 summit as something akin to rock stars. At the G-20 in Seoul next week, “they’re not going to have a lot of allies,” said Alan Auerbach, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, who has close ties to the White House.

The New York Times, October 28, 2010 by Sewell Chan
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/29/business/economy/29fed.html?_r=2&scp=2&sq=Berkeley&st=nyt

“Further short-run fiscal expansion paired with credible measures to deal with longer-term deficits would be a good idea,” said Alan J. Auerbach, a professor of economics and law at the University of California, Berkeley. “The political difficulty of accomplishing this puts pressure not only on the Fed but also on our trade policy, where we are forced to lean more heavily on China.”

San Jose Mercury News, September 16, 2010 by Chris O’Brien
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_16096549

What’s interesting is that in most cases, these companies have more deductions and credits than they can take in a given year…. “If you say, ‘In addition to all the other deductions you can’t use, here are some more,’ it’s not going to do any good,” Auerbach said.

-National Journal Magazine, September 11, 2010 by Peter Cohn
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/nj_20100911_7590.php

“They’re certainly not putting forward a very different voice on tax policy than the Republicans are, other than with respect to the top 2 percent of the income distribution,” said Alan Auerbach, an economics and law professor….”There is the issue now having to do with the recession, which makes things more complicated, although that was not a factor in Obama’s position in the campaign in 2008, because his position was formed well before we were in recession.”

-The Wall Street Journal, September 11, 2010 by Deborah Soloman
http://bit.ly/ajcUBL

“I think his research would lead him to be quite comfortable with the administration’s current proposals to extend the lower-income tax cuts and not the higher-income,” said Alan Auerbach, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, who has known Mr. [Austan] Goolsbee for more than a decade.

-The Wall Street Journal, September 13, 2010 by John D. McKinnon, Ben Levisohn, and Justin Lahart
http://bit.ly/cGGFj8

Alan Auerbach, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley who also has studied the effect of the Bush tax cuts, said the evidence suggested that repealing the changes probably would produce a “small negative effect” on financial markets.

-Investor’s Business Daily, August 19, 2010 by Jed Graham
http://bit.ly/b0cEsY

“It would be dangerous to the economy” to let all of the tax cuts expire, said University of California, Berkeley, economist Alan Auerbach.

-Bloomberg Businessweek, August 23, 2010 by Chris Farrell
http://www.businessweek.com/print/investor/content/aug2010/pi20100823_918366.htm

Economists Alan Auerbach of the University of California at Berkeley and William Gale of the Brookings Institution calculate that if the economy reaches full employment in 2014 and stays there for the rest of the decade, staying the course with current fiscal policies would lead to a national debt in the range of 90 percent of gross domestic product by 2020.

San Francisco Chronicle, August 10, 2010 by Carolyn Lochhead
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/08/10/MNB41EOBV2.DTL

According to Auerbach of UC Berkeley, the Obama administration budget plan calls for $9 trillion in deficits for the next decade, raising the debt to 90 percent of the national income by 2020, a record high since World War II.

-The Washington Post, August 1, 2010 by William G. Gale
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/30/AR2010073002671_pf.html

Based on projections by the CBO, Alan Auerbach of the University of California at Berkeley and myself, among others, even if the economy returns to full employment by 2014 and stays there for the rest of the decade, the continuation of current fiscal policies, including the Bush tax cuts, would lead to a national debt in the range of 90 percent of GDP by 2020.

-Bloomberg Businessweek, August 5, 2010 by Peter Coy
http://www.businessweek.com/print/magazine/content/10_33/b4191056654282.htm

One problem with extending the cuts is that it doesn’t send much of a signal about fiscal fortitude. That’s why economist Alan Auerbach of the University of California at Berkeley argues for coupling the extension with a major deficit-reducing measure that would kick in a couple of years from now—say, an increase in the Social Security retirement age.

-Investor’s Business Daily, July 19, 2010 by Jed Graham
http://bit.ly/bTznlV

Alan Auerbach argues that debt levels are still manageable enough that it makes sense to give the economy more running room to solidify the recovery before embracing austerity. “I think the best strategy—which is not one that is politically likely—is to not worry so much about the short-term debt accumulation, but to take very forceful action” to address long-term deficits tied to health care spending and Social Security,” Auerbach said.

-The Wall Street Journal, Real Time Economics Blog, July 24, 2010 by Mark Whitehouse
http://bit.ly/dbCMvG

Messrs. Auerbach and Gale estimate that the government needs to increase tax revenues or cut spending by as much as 9% of economic output to put its finances on a sustainable trajectory.

ABC Radio, PM (Australia), June 21, 2010 Host Mark Colvin
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2010/s2932964.htm

The problem is that the economies in the US and Europe are so weak as a result of the recession and there’s a general view among economists that withdrawing stimulus could be dangerous…. The best of all possible worlds would be to maintain fiscal stimulus in the short run while simultaneously making credible policy actions now that will make fiscal adjustments occur in the not-too-distant future.