Congress Ignores Obvious Policy Solution to Major Economic Threat
You can summarize the easy approach as ‘stimulus now, fiscal restraint later.’ CBO hinted at this approach in its report.
‘[I]f lawmakers changed fiscal policy in late 2012 to remove or offset all of the policies that are scheduled to reduce the federal budget deficit by 5.1 percent of GDP between calendar years 2012 and 2013…CBO estimates, the growth of real GDP in calendar year 2013 would lie in a broad range around 4.4 percent, well above the 0.5 percent projected for 2013 under current law,’ the report reads. ‘However, eliminating or reducing the fiscal restraint scheduled to occur next year without imposing comparable restraint in future years would reduce output and income in the longer run relative to what would occur if the scheduled fiscal restraint remained in place.’
In other words Congress could promote real growth by keeping deficits high now, and avoid the future downside risks of large, structural budget deficits by enacting sequential legislation to reduce deficits that won’t take effect until the economy’s growing at a decent clip.
‘I think we should pass a very tough deficit reduction plan now and provide for it to trigger when the economy has reached like three percent growth for a few quarters,’ Bill Clinton told guests at the Pete Peterson Fiscal Summit a week ago.
Even Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke — a Republican, who for institutional reasons is constrained from providing specific policy recommendations — has outlined a similar approach.
“A lot of Democrats are sympathetic to this approach, but Republicans are only on board if the future deficit reduction comes only from massive cuts to government services. They might be willing to defer the budget consolidation, but only if Democrats agree to use the country’s budget deficits as a forcing mechanism to shrink the government’s role in providing social insurance to the poor, middle class, and elderly.”
Frank says: