The Facts About Spending Cuts, the Debt, and the GDP
Separating economic myths from economic truths
An excerpt from the article:
Raising the debt limit might put off a downgrade disaster in August, but that still isn’t enough—as Standard & Poor’s recent warning made clear. Perhaps the most important shot not heard around the world was S&P’s other admonition: Namely, that the U.S. bond rating will be downgraded in three months, if not sooner, unless we do something about government spending. Beyond raising the debt limit, S&P laid out clear criteria for avoiding a downgrade: 1) reduce the debt by about $4 trillion; 2) agree to a credible plan within three months; and 3) guarantee that this newfound fiscal discipline will actually stick.
If S&P isn’t bluffing, then lawmakers should get serious about reducing the debt-to-GDP ratio, and they should do it quickly. But how do we achieve such a task?
Myth 1: You cannot reduce the deficit to an appropriate level without also raising taxes.
Fact 1: Spending cuts are the most effective way to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio.
We are not the first nation to struggle with a dangerous debt-to-GDP ratio, and thankfully, the academic world has already produced great insights into what can be done to reduce this ratio without hurting the economy.
Take the work of Harvard’s Alberto Alesina and Silvia Ardagna. They examined 107 efforts to reduce the debt in 21 OECD nations between 1970–2007. Their findings suggest that tax cuts are more expansionary than spending increases in the cases of a fiscal stimulus. Also, they found that spending cuts are a more effective way to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio:
For fiscal adjustments we show that spending cuts are much more effective than tax increases in stabilizing the debt and avoiding economic downturns. In fact, we uncover several episodes in which spending cuts adopted to reduce deficits have been associated with economic expansions rather than recessions. We also investigate which components of taxes and spending affect the economy more in these large episodes and we try to uncover channels running through private consumption and/or investment.As you can see in this chart, in cases of successful fiscal adjustments—defined by the cumulative reduction in debt-to-GDP ratio three years after fiscal adjustment greater than 4.5 percentage points—spending as a share of GDP fell by about 2 percentage points while revenue also fell by half a percentage point (left bars). On the other hand, unsuccessful fiscal adjustment packages—cumulative increases in debt-to-GDP ratio—were made of smaller spending reductions (only 0.8 percentage-point reduction) and large revenue increases (right bars)."
Read the whole thing and see the interview at: http://reason.com/archives/2011/07/29/the-facts-about-spending-cuts/1
Economics is a study of trends not facts. The "facts" are constantly revised. Everything from every economist's mouth is either future myth or distant history. It's a vehicle for political opinions. The quickest way to reduce any debt is to cut spending AND increase income (taxes). To say that people will no longer work if you raise their taxes by an incremental percentage is insane. People have no choice but to work. Let's start by reducing all loopholes and subsidies for everyone. And every corporation. No more mortgage deductions and no more oil and gas exploration grants, I mean handouts, no I mean corporate give aways.
ReplyDeleteConservatives are fond of fawning over the Reagan tax cuts but even he raised taxes 11 times after he came to his senses. Let's talk about Bill Clinton's surplus instead. We didn't go into the economic crapper until G. Bush instituted tax cuts for the way wealthy. Work around that "fact."