The budget is the main weapon of any politician. When he gets a government post, he makes the big difference because it is able to manage huge resources of money. It does not matter whether the economy is healthy. He always can use the deficit. Nobody is able to demonstrate that finally it will conduct to the bankruptcy. There is no Chapter 11 for Federal Governments.

However, circumstances are not the same. You cannot increase the deficit without limits if the last owner of the Whitehouse did he abuse of the debt more than any other President in the American History. And you know that more deficit means a longer way to recover the poor state of the economy.

Economists are aware of this situation and it explains why so many experts are giving a lot of advice to Mr Obama. It seems that noperson is confident in the capabilities of the new President to change the ruinosa evolution of the public budget. Conservatives have even set up a campaign against the called stimulus plan. Progressists, closer friend of the Democrat President, have had also the need to counseling.

We can find the example in the memo A Budget We Can Believe In, published by the Urban Institute with the aim of guiding Mr Obama in his big first decision. “Your first budget will be a defining document. It will cast the basic mold of your administration, highlight your key priorities, and specify how you are going to deliver on your most important campaign promises or modify them in light of new developments. The decisions you make in shaping this budget will be among the most consequential of your tenure”.

These analysts and scholars think the Federal budget should take into account three basic aspects:

“Stabilizing America’s financial markets to ensure an ample and affordable supply of credit, which is the lifeblood of our economy. Reducing the severity and duration of the current recession and getting Americans back to work. At the same time, your budget must set in motion measures that deal with two critical long-term challenges to America’s economic health. Controlling the growth of health costs and putting Social Security on a financially sustainable path. Reforming America’s tax system to make it more efficient, fairer and simpler and to raise adequate revenue while maintaining economic growth”.

It is a sort of letter to Santa Claus, but we know that the first one hundred days of any public official is a continuous honeymoon with the society. Worst times will arrive, but not at the moment. The experts of the Urban consider that the great danger is a new and uncontrolled increase of the public debt.  “The costs of stabilizing the financial markets and stimulating economic growth will generate a large increase in our national debt. We will have to borrow money in domestic and international capital markets to finance this debt, and without a serious commitment to long-term fiscal restraint, lenders will eventually question the nation’s fiscal credibility. They may respond by reducing the share of their portfolios devoted to U.S. government debt or by charging higher interest rates. In the extreme, the reluctance to buy U. S. debt could cause a crisis in international capital markets”. The higher cost of the social security systems in the next fifteen years is going to cause serious problems to the financial health of developed countries, where citizens enjoy a standard of living they are reluctant to lose.

For this reason, they ask to stop public debt disguised in investment as the economic starts recovering. This hopeful iniciative has a big obstacle. No politician is able to cut the budget if it means he is going to lose the support of voters. And it always happens when you put the healthy economy first and the popularity in a second term.