Budget chief: Cutting deficit requires novel ideas

Office of Management and Budget Director Peter R. Orszag said on Thursday that the U.S. deficit and debt are the biggest long-term problem the country faces, but he praised the passage of healthcare reform as putting the country on the right path.

Speaking at a luncheon for the Economic Club of Washington, he defended healthcare reform as moving the country toward a system "based on quality and efficiency rather than quantity."

Orszag also called the fiscal commission created by President Obama a valuable tool in getting long-term entitlement spending under control. But the issue of Social Security is ultimately a political decision because lawmakers are aware of the options for keeping it solvent, he added. More broadly, Orszag said, the Obama administration is moving away from traditional solutions to trying to fix the problem. If it relied only on traditional measures such as cutting spending and adjusting revenues, "we would still face a real long-term problem," he said.