Obama ready to make tough choices on budget

US President Barack Obama is willing to make difficult choices on spending cuts when he unveils his budget next month, a senior aide said on Sunday.

"We are going to have to make, in the medium run, a series of tough choices, and the president's not afraid to do that, and I think you will see in his budget that he's willing to," White House economist Austan Goolsbee told the ABC News program "This Week" in an interview. Goolsbee also said he saw some encouraging signs in the US labor market, including a recent drop in claims for unemployment insurance.