I like a good contrarian argument. So I was open to Ryan Avent’s post on Trump’s fiscal policy proposals (which combine massive tax cuts with big spending increases.)
On the demand side, permanent tax cuts for the very rich would be expected to have a multiplier far smaller than tax cuts for poorer workers or direct spending, but even so, new deficits of several percentage points of GDP could not help but raise demand (assuming the Fed did not react to the plan by raising interest rates sharply). It would be an inefficient stimulus, but it would be a stimulus, and given that the American economy is still close to the zero lower bound and is probably still operating with a fair amount of economic slack, such a stimulus should increase growth in real output for a year or two at least. In the short run, the economy would not crash (not as a result of Mr Trump’s tax cuts, anyway).
What about the longer run? Well, $34 trillion in new debt over the next two decades would be a lot, without question. It probably wouldn’t be a catastrophic amount, however. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that American GDP will be around $40 trillion in two decades. That suggests that Mr Trump would raise the ratio of gross debt to GDP by about 80 percentage points relative to what it would otherwise be. On top of the growth CBO already projects for American government debt over the next two decades, that would push up gross debt to GDP to about 220%.
That’s a lot! On the other hand, it implies that America would have a ratio of debt to GDP two decades from now that is 30 percentage points less than Japan’s government debt is right now.
In the end, Ryan isn’t trying to defend Trump’s proposals, but rather to make a different point:
The point here is not that Mr Trump’s plans are sensible. To be clear: they are ridiculous. It is to illustrate an uncomfortable truth, though, which is that the world economy right now is also a little ridiculous. Government bonds are not supposed to be doing what they’re doing. Countries are not supposed to be able to borrow like Japan is borrowing. So while playing to people’s gut instinct that fiscal sobriety is good is probably good politics, it might also be an obstacle to political efforts to respond in a sensible way to the weirdness of the economic moment: by making a positive case for deficit-financed public investment and for a change in central bank targets to something better suited to the moment, for example. Dangerous demagogues like Mr Trump thrive in conditions like those now afflicting the global economy. If the adults in the room remain unwilling to take macroeconomic challenges seriously, Mr Trump’s debts will be the least of our worries.
Notice that Ryan alludes to the fact that the US debt ratio is currently expected to rise to about 140% of GDP over the next few decades, even without Trump’s tax cuts. This trend has worried many economists, and there’s a rough consensus today that we need to get a better handle on entitlement spending. On the other hand, Japan’s gross debt is already 250% of GDP, and there are no obvious signs that this level of debt is unsustainable.
Ryan might be correct. It’s possible that the US might be able to dramatically increase the debt ratio over the next few decades, with no ill effects. Nonetheless, I think it would be very unwise to do so.
Let’s start with the demand stimulus. It’s very unlikely that major fiscal stimulus would boost demand at all—instead the Fed would offset the effects with higher interest rates. People often argue that monetary offset does not apply at low interest rates. That’s wrong. It might not apply if the current interest rate were above the level preferred by the Fed. But that has not been true for years. Ryan also mentions to supply-side effects, but you can get most of those with sensible tax reform, without blowing a hole in the budget. Lower marginal tax rates, close loopholes, and switch from taxing investment to taxing consumption.
My other concern is that we need to expect the unexpected. Can we really trust CBO projections about the future path of variables such as NGDP? For instance, I very much doubt that America’s NGDP will be $40 trillion in 2 decades. In 2005 and 2006, lots of Americans took out mortgages, secure in the knowledge that American housing prices don’t suddenly plunge by 30%–until they did. The Greek government ran up large debts, secure in the knowledge that modern European economies don’t see their NGDP crash by 25%–until it did. Once you’ve run up large debts, it’s too late if things don’t play out as you’d hoped.
Suppose our debt is 220% of GDP, and interest rates return to 5%. Now we’ll be spending 11% of GDP on just interest payments. To put that number in perspective, it’s about three times what we spend on the military. Do I think interest rates will rise to 5%? No, I do not. But back in 2006, when interest rates were 5%, I had no idea that they were about to go to zero.
A massive national debt is playing Russian roulette with the economy. Japan is quite sensibly trying to reduce its budget deficit, by raising consumption taxes. Or at least they were doing so, until the Abe government decided to splurge on fiscal stimulus, partly in response to the advice of Western academics. Japan should have adopted NGDP targeting, done whatever it takes to hit their target, and simultaneously raised consumption taxes even further (or cut spending.)
Of course Ryan is not a fan of Trump’s plan, but I would even oppose his more modest proposals. I don’t see any benefit in further raising our debt, as we move into an era where entitlement spending will put increasing pressure on the budget. If there are infrastructure projects that make sense, then by all means do them, hopefully with as much private sector participation as possible. Maybe we could privatize our airports, the FAA and Amtrak. But we should pay for any government projects with higher taxes on consumption—preferably the consumption of more affluent people like me.
READER COMMENTS
Daniel Kahn
Aug 2 2016 at 11:25am
LoL, pun intended?
ThaomasH
Aug 2 2016 at 11:58am
But the premise of Avent is that things can go wrong. Just as the Fed had an inappropriately tight money policy since 2008, it could be inappropriately accommodative in 2017-18 and a Trump mistake could be vindicated in the short run.
As for longer run tax and expenditure policy, I still think looking at the debt ratio is upside down. We should concentrate on reducing expenditures that have low value and increase those that have high value and move to shift taxation wage and income taxation toward a carbon and progressive consumption tax. Of course not everyone will agree what is “high value” and “low value” or how progressive the consumption tax should be or what the marginal value of CO2 emissions is, but that is what we ought to focus on, not “debt.” At best the debt ratio is a sort of consistency check on micro fiscal decisions.
bill
Aug 2 2016 at 1:12pm
I could not agree more.
And fat tails are a lot fatter than people ever think even when they think they are trying to imagine the worst.
Effem
Aug 2 2016 at 1:15pm
Seems to me like higher fiscal spending + higher rates is a decent idea to start to address inequality, which is clearly causing political problems worldwide.
You get a fiscal boost to the bottom and higher rates bring down wealth/income ratios.
Benjamin Cole
Aug 2 2016 at 1:16pm
I agree, do not run up big debts.
Send the helicopters instead.
baconbacon
Aug 2 2016 at 1:35pm
You mean besides zero growth for 24 years?
Brian Donohue
Aug 2 2016 at 2:13pm
Very good post, Scott. The entitlement spending wave, she’s a coming.
Scott Sumner
Aug 2 2016 at 4:22pm
Daniel, No, I’m bad at puns.
Effem, But isn’t income then even more unequal, assuming that bondholders tend to be rich?
Bacon, I see that as one reason debt rose so sharply, not an effect of the debt. But again, I am more concerned about Japanese debt than the average economist.
Thanks Brian.
JudgeK
Aug 4 2016 at 2:56pm
Great post, Scott.
As a general rule, the future resembles the past until it doesn’t. And people cling to old modes of thinking until long past the point where the old mode is obsolete.
I’m for more consumption taxes but wonder how far you can shift away from income taxation to consumption taxation without adverse effects on the deficit. It’s great if we tax Trump when he buys his next yacht, but there’s no knowing if he’ll buy that yacht or stick the money under his mattress instead. Warren Buffett doesn’t consume much either.
Lorenzo from Oz
Aug 5 2016 at 12:38am
At the end of the Napoleonic Wars, Britain had a public debt level as % GDP about the same as Japan now does, with a much lower level of central government income as %GDP.
Britain was also about to have a huge surge in population and in productivity (aka Industrial Revolution). Not really likely to happen for the US or Japan in the next decades.
Also, Britain was about to enter into a period of only small wars (apart from the Crimean War) for decades. Be nice to think that was going to be true …
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