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When Unbearable Debt Meets Unsustainable Political Support
Many idealists think we can just inform the public enough to understand the best policies to govern ourselves. Unfortunately tilting at windmills seems more productive. Policies gain and maintain support not by voter knowledge but by voter experience. I don’t care how many TV specials or column inches get devoted to explaining that congestion pricing is better for drivers – it will only reach a critical mass of support when drivers experience the benefits outweighing its costs.
As a pure political argument, do you think hugely slashing defense spending is a winner? Maybe right now. What about the months after 9/11? Voters have no idea what the practical differences are of a few hundred billion more or a few hundred billion less in spending on the military. If the country feels safe they’ll support a low level of defense spending (assuming that the level is compatible with actual and perceived safety). Are high tax rates politically sustainable? If there is strong economic growth, yes. Of course if they’re too high and they weaken growth they’re not sustainable. Bill Clinton easily won reelection and somehow maintained higher tax rates that many currently think would be politically reckless to advocate. Those tax rates even gave us a surplus and would do a lot to balance our budget. What’s the difference? Clinton didn’t explain it better – he presided over a growing economy. Clinton even won large percentages of wealthy voters (not majorities though). Today, growth is anemic.
What does this tell us about any debt reduction plan? Since future congresses will have to keep any policies in place that balance the budget, the policies can’t be incompatible with voters’ improving experiences. Paul Ryan’s medicare “fix” isn’t bad because it is unfair or ideologically conservative – even if you forced everyone to read and love Atlas Shrugged it wouldn’t fix the deficit. When the elderly start getting vouchers that decrease in value (they grow at the rate of inflation but healthcare grows faster) they’ll see their situation as steadily deteriorate and vote to change the policy. That doesn’t mean that benefits need exponential growth to maintain support, but shifting the cost to consumers also doesn’t work. Public debt means higher taxes and less ability to spend elsewhere while private debt directly consumes personal wealth that reduces demand and economic growth. That’s why costs need to be contained not payments. Ezra points out that smaller versions of Ryan’s plan failed:
Various states have gotten waivers to radically remake their Medicaid program, and the consumer-driven model that Ryan is proposing for Medicare has been attempted in the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program and Medicare Advantage. None of these programs have worked, which is why we’re in our current predicament.
Voters need to feel that their overall well-being is improving which means holding down costs in a way that doesn’t prevent economic growth. A growing economy makes every policy sustainable; the trick is to pick solutions that don’t kill economic growth. Paul Ryan correctly realizes that medicare can’t be an open-ended commitment because doing so would eventually harm the economy. His numbers don’t add up, the distribution is unjust, and its prospects are inconceivable but we can debate the merits of it as policy. He should be commended for offering something tangible even as we reveal its flaws. Are there other solutions?
The Kaiser Family Foundation compares some proposals. Many Democrats think strengthening the Independent Payment Advisory Board holds promise. Introducing a dedicated VAT to government healthcare spending always made sense to me – that way it explicitly ties what we’re willing to spend to what is politically sustainable.
Politicians should remember that the single best thing they could do to reduce the deficit is choose policies that maximize economic growth (even if that means taking advantage of cheap borrowing now). Yet, our debt is so large more must be done. Since the major problem is too many retirees relative to able workers, we could change one policy that no one seems to notice would dramatically help. Increase the number of young workers… otherwise known as immigrants. Obviously immigrants age too so it’s not a magic bullet, but anything that keeps the dependency ratio at a reasonable level would be enormously helpful.
Another aspect of immigration policy that needs consideration (since we can’t feasibly let in enough migrants completely solve everything) are temporary workers. Temporary workers are great because they come at almost no cost to the taxpayer. We don’t have to educate them and we don’t have to pay for their retirement, but they grow the economy and pay taxes. As Matthew McConaughey might observe, high school girls and temporary immigrants have a lot in common: they “stay the same age.”
Much more needs to be done, but anything that passes must maintain support.
"Walking And Chewing Gum"
Martin Wolf explains to deficit hawks that tightening fiscal policy too early could cause more problems in global markets.
Despite the most aggressive monetary policy ever, private sectors moved into huge surpluses. Monetary policy was “pushing on a string”. The fiscal offsets – overwhelmingly due to built-in fiscal stabilisers, not the discretionary stimulus – helped sustain demand in the crisis. But they were insufficient, even with monetary support, to prevent deep recessions. The argument that stimulus was unnecessary is hard to accept. It is easier to believe it was too small, albeit also ill-targeted.
So how quickly should deficits be eliminated? We must recognise the danger here: cutting public spending will not automatically raise private spending. The attempted reduction in the structural deficit might lead, instead, to a rise in cyclical fiscal deficits, which would be running to stand still, or to a reduction in the private surpluses only because income fell even faster than spending. Either outcome would be grim. Yet neither can be ruled out.
As long as output remains depressed, the fiscal support is most unlikely to be inflationary. Nor will it crowd out the private sector: it is more likely to crowd it in. The big question, then, is whether deficits can be financed. My answer is: yes. Remember that so long as the private sector runs financial surpluses it must buy claims on the public sector, unless the developed world as a whole is about to move into huge external surpluses.
Deficits are a real problem, just not now. It’s clear that we should reassure private investors and financial markets by setting up long-term policies for controlling the deficit that don’t depress demand in the short-term. A VAT would be one obvious revenue side solution. Controlling health care costs is the biggest on the spending side. The good news is that the best way to curb the deficit is to enact policies that promote economic growth now. Fiscal restraint now isn’t one of those policies.
VAT Watch, ctd: Bill Clinton’s Endorsement
I’m happy to see President Clinton endorse a VAT. However, he need not make spurious arguments when plenty of sound ones exist. Greg Mankiw quotes Alan Viard on why a VAT wouldn’t “improve our trade balance.”
A common fallacy holds that border tax adjustments—imposing taxes on imports and rebating taxes on exports—would enhance American exports and reduce imports. The reasoning behind this mistake is simple enough. A border adjustment seems to provide a subsidy to exporters and to levy a tariff on importers. Border adjustment proponents, noting that international trade rules allow nations to border adjust consumption taxes such as European-style value added taxes, urge the adoption of a consumption tax in the United States so that we can border adjust and enhance our trade competitiveness.
Yet, such an argument ignores an essential truth about imports and exports: over the long term, exports and imports must be equal. We can think of a country like a household. Purchases are paid for from the proceeds of sales, and sales are made for the purpose of additional purchases. In the long run, purchases and sales must be equal. A nation’s trade policy works the same way. Over a nation’s history, the value of exports in current dollars must equal the value of imports in present value. Any attempt to permanently increase exports and decrease imports is futile.
Oh Ya, Just Cut Spending…
Anytime a discussion comes up about fixing the budget deficit and someone suggests that we should just cut spending recognize immediately that they probably don’t know what they’re talking about. If they do know what they’re talking about (doubtful), chances are they are being deliberately naive. David Leonhardt in The New York Times shows us why. My stomach sank a little when I read these numbers.
As a rough estimate, the government will need to find spending cuts and tax increases equal to 7 to 10 percent of G.D.P. The longer we wait, the bigger the cuts will need to be (because of the accumulating interest costs).
Seven percent of G.D.P. is about $1 trillion today. In concrete terms, Medicare’s entire budget is about $450 billion. The combined budgets of the Education, Energy, Homeland Security, Justice, Labor, State, Transportation and Veterans Affairs Departments are less than $600 billion.
This is why fixing the budget through spending cuts alone, as Congressional Republicans say they favor, would be so hard.
This is why I continue to favor cutting spending along with phasing in a VAT (while dialing down other less efficient taxes).
(via Marginal Revolution)
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