1 Next week, Congress will focus on a short-term budget.

2 In January 1996 President Clinton accepted a short-term budget bill that funded the EPA as a whole at 22 percent below the agency's 1995 funding. However, EPA funding has started to increase again.

3 Analysts say this is positive for the short-term budget picture but is by definition providing only temporary relief.

4 It did nothing to reconcile widening divisions, particularly between Europeans and Americans, over the merits of short-term budget austerity.

5 Bernanke offered a fig leaf to both sides, supporting lower taxes on the one hand while maintaining that short-term budget reductions should not be too radical.

6 First, the Keynesians are right to observe that, for the rich world as a whole, there is a danger of overdoing the short-term budget austerity.