Long-term unemployment can make any worker progressively less employable, even after the economy strengthens.

There were a lot of manufacturing jobs lost over a long period of time and particularly after - during the Great Recession. We've had some recovery in manufacturing employment as the economy's recovered.

In the long run, outsourcing is another form of trade that benefits the U.S. economy by giving us cheaper ways to do things.

After adjusting for inflation, the average income of the top 5% of households grew by 38% from 1989 to 2013. By comparison, the average real income of the other 95% of households grew less than 10%.

As always, it would be important to ensure that any fiscal policy changes did not compromise long-run fiscal sustainability.

It certainly would be helpful going forward for deficit reduction efforts to focus on the medium term while not subtracting from the impetus we need to keep a fragile economy moving forward.